Bitter tale: Feelgood ends in ‘failgood’ for sugar belt

The Panjrakan Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana in Dhule is one of more than 50 sugar factories in Maharashtra that have either gone into liquidation or closed down due to losses. The unit lies sealed on the orders of the state’s apex co-operative bank, which intends to auction it and recover dues amounting to Rs 25 crore.

The bulk of the workforce has left the area for other jobs; an unfortunate few have ended their lives; and thousands of Adivasi farm hands who depended on cane cultivation, have migrated to Gujarat and western Maharashtra.

A visit to the nearby township of Sakhri shows how deeply the closure has damaged the region. Built around a dusty bus depot and a few provincial government offices, it has a market that’s lined with ageing single-storey structures. Bumpy tarred roads and a crippling power shortage lend an air of neglect. ‘‘Buying and selling was brisk in the days when the factory did well. During the harvest season, it used to generate about Rs 1.5 crore income every month. Now, we’re just getting on,’’ says Nana Nagre, a zilla parishad member and shopkeeper.

So, what does he think about the feelgood effect apparently sweeping across the countryside? ‘‘Feelgood? Here, it’s failgood,’’ Nagre retorts, before saying that all four sugar factories in Dhule district have closed down.

In the 50’s, regional bosses used government funds to back a co-operative model, in which individual sugarcane farmers, as stakeholders, elected the management of a sugar factory. To start with, it accelerated development, bringing roads, power, education and employment to remote areas. The state went on to top in sugar production with over 150 units in operation. But by the 1980s, politicians were using a combination of money and muscle to pervert the system. The factories became means to control a votebank of farmers, labourers and cronies.

‘‘Lot of money was made in contracting labour or purchasing machinery and raw material, all at the expense of the factories and the members of the sugar co-operatives, for whom nothing remained,’’ says the vice-president of the Sugar Workers Federation, Subhash Kakuste.

To complicate matters, state support allows more units to spring up, regardless of the availability of sugarcane. ‘‘Now, there are too many factories and in areas where there is little cultivation to sustain it,’’ says deputy secretary Vasant Puraddiwar, who oversees policy for the sector.

And if it was the Congress which dominated the sector once, it is the BJP that has muscled in now. Leader of opposition Gopinath Munde controls several units including the Ambejogai co-operative. ‘‘The only people living off the sugar factories now are the politicians,’’ says Kakuste.