Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday lashed out at the state government for “mismanaging” the Bhogpur Sugar Mill, besides providing undue advantage to certain people at the cost of the interest of the farmers.
A delegation of the farmers from Doaba Kisan Sangharsh Samiti met Capt Amarinder and told him that there was a turbine blast in the Mill on July 17, last year, which led to the mill stopping to produce the electricity.
During the last year, before the turbine blast, electricity worth ₹14 crore was produced and sold by the plant in the first four months only.
“But since the plant hasn’t been operationalised again the mill had to buy electricity worth ₹12 crore causing huge losses to the society and resulting in delay of payment to the cane farmers,” the farmers told the former chief minister.
Capt Amarinder disclosed that the Bhogpur Sugar Mill was renovated and modernised during his government at a cost of ₹109 crore in November 2020 and the capacity was enhanced to 3000 Tons of Cane per Day (TCD) from 1016 TCD besides a new 15 MW power plant was also set up.
Amarinder said the farmers alleged that the management favours big farmers and provides them unfair advantage and lets them bring their produce first to the mill, which forces small farmers to go to private players who don’t provide payment on time
{{/usCountry}}Amarinder said the farmers alleged that the management favours big farmers and provides them unfair advantage and lets them bring their produce first to the mill, which forces small farmers to go to private players who don’t provide payment on time
{{/usCountry}}“There is no proper token (parchi) system due to which the small farmers aren’t allowed to bring their produce on time which later results in them having to face massive fines due to no fault of their own. In last season, 871 farmers were fined a whopping amount of ₹70 Lakh, which is totally unfair to the farmers that are already facing economic strain,” Amarinder alleged.