The Aska Cooperative Sugar Industries Ltd (ASCIL) has started processing sugarcane from Wednesday for the crop year 2011-12 (October 2011-September 2012) with a target to produce 160,000 tonnes of sugar, almost double from last year.
Last year, the factory crushed 81,924 tonnes of sugarcane and had produced 6,618 tonnes of sugar, with a recovery percentage of 8.1 per cent. The factory operated for only 57 days in the previous crop year.
“We expect the factory will run more days and produce more sugar this year as the cane acreage has gone up,” said P C Padhy, the Cane Development Manager (CDM) of ASCIL. Sugarcane area in the state rose to 7,282 acres in the current crop year, from 5,491 acres planted in 2010-11. Ganjam Sugarcane Growers' Association has, however, said the sugarcane acreage in the state may not grow in the years to come if the government does not assure irrigation. The irrigation engineers in the key sugarcane growing area have expressed their inability to supply water as most of the reservoirs in the district have lower water due to limited rains in the last monsoon session. For the current crop year, ASCIL is paying Rs 210 more per tonne of sugarcane, totaling to Rs 2,210 per tonne. Besides, the farmers would be getting transport subsidy in case of transportation beyond 10 km from the factory.