Sugar mills in Odisha produce a mere 25 per cent of its sugar requirement now, informed Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerments Minister Pradeep Maharathy in the State Assembly on Wednesday. Replying to a question of Congress MlA Naba Kishore Das and a host of members, the Minister said while sugar mills produce an annual average of 56,773.987 metric tonnes of sugar against requirements of 2.24 lakh metric tonne as per the National Sample Survey (NSS) report.
Members expressed concern that sugarcane cultivation has been decreased over the years as mills are cheating farmers in many ways. The mill owners are delaying to take sugarcanes from the field after 10 to 15 days of cutting and farmers are suffering losses, members alleged. The Minister said he has received information in this regard and would take action soon. He said the Government h has targeted to undertake sugarcane cultivation on 40,000 hectares of land and produce 29.6 lakh sugarcane during finance year 2017-18.
A total of 5,15,138 metric tonne of sugarcane had been process and 48,066 metric tonne sugar produced in 2015-16, informed the Minister. Stating that three out of six sugar mills are defunct now, the Minister said efforts would be taken soon them to make them functional.