As Vishal Patil tries his luck in Sangli, a tale of two mills
Vasantdada Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana (SSK) in Miraj and Jarandeshwar Sugar mill in Koregaon share a political legacy. Promoted by Vasantdada and Shalinitai Patil, both now face privatization. Vishal Patil enters politics amidst mill challenges.
Vasantdada Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana (SSK) in Miraj taluka of Sangli and the Jarandeshwar Sugar mill in Koregaon taluka of Satara have similarities that can hardly be missed. To begin with, both mills had started off as cooperative mills but are now either being run by private companies or are privatised. However, the greatest similarity between the mills is that they were promoted by the husband-wife pair of stalwart politicians — former chief minister of Maharashtra Vasantdada Patil and his second wife and former minister Shalinitai Patil. As Vishal Patil, the grandson of Vasantdada, tries out his luck as a rebel candidate in Sangli, the mills in both the regions have their tales to tell.
When in the early 1950s, Vasantdada Patil decided to start a cooperative sugar mill in the region, cane as a crop was almost unknown here. Patil had his work cut out — introduce cane as a crop to the farmers and ensure enough water is available to grow the same. First, Patil decided to invest heavily in irrigation infrastructure in the form of lift irrigation schemes. Sanjiv Babar, former managing director of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Factories Federation, said 72 such schemes were built, operated and maintained by the mills. “When farmers sold their cane to the mill, the electricity bill was deducted from the final bill. This was the first mill in the state to invest so heavily on behalf of its farmers in terms of irrigation,” he said.
Irrigation was just one part of Patil’s plan. The bigger part was introducing cane to the farmers and convincing them to take the cash crop, which was easier said than done. While his own formal education was limited, Patil was a great exponent of technology and innovation in agriculture. During the initial days of the mill, Patil was found in the fields working with farmers to introduce them to the cane. Agriculture experts were called to the fields to demonstrate the manner in which the crop would be grown. Once upon a time, the mill had the largest crushing capacity in the state, crushing on an average 8,000-10,000 tonnes of cane per day.
Patil’s wife Shalini attempted to replicate in Koregaon taluka in the 1990s what Vasantdada had done in the 1950s. Both Miraj and Koregaon lie in the rain shadow area of the districts. Here, farmers have to depend on rainfall for their crops. In Koregaon, Shalini Patil promoted a cooperative mill to help farmers get better returns from their fields.
After the demise of Patil, his son Prakash took over the helm of the mill. Prakash was perhaps one of the most advance proponent of technology, but his hold over the mill’s management by then had started to weaken. By then, Sangli saw the rise of rivals like Rajarambapu Patil – the father of NCP leader and former minister Jayant Patil, Mohanrao Shinde and others. Vishnu anna Patil — Prakash’s cousin — was in fact defeated in an election thanks to the internal rivalry of the Congress party in Sangli.
The actual problem of Vasantdada SSK started in the 1990s and steamed from two main reasons. Rival cooperative mills had started to poach cane in the area by luring farmers with a higher price. It was custom for the mill to get cane from Karnataka at a cheaper rate to fulfill the requirement, but by then the sugar industry in Karnataka had also grown and the mill found it difficult to get cane from there.
“As the legacy of Vasantdada started weaning, populist measures like mass employment in the mill were resorted to. The wage bill of the mill became too high and its losses started counting,” said an old timer from Sangli. By 2010-14, the Sangli district cooperative bank had attached the mill with a total bad debt to the tune of Rs 190 crore.
In Koregaon, Shalini’s mill ran into choppy waters when repeated droughts and financial woes forced the Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank to sell off the mill to a private player in 2010.
In 2014, the bank decided to lease out the mill to the Mumbai based Shri Dutt India on a long lease. For the crushing season of 2023-24, the mill had crushed over 8 lakh tonnes of cane, paying farmers over Rs 269.92 crore. Vishal Patil would become the chairman of the mill once the lease gets over.
Babar, who has worked closely with the cooperative sector, both in banking and sugar, said the legacy of the mill can hardly be overemphasised. “To begin with, this mill invested heavily in irrigation so that the farmers were able to grow cane. The mill was the first to adopt new technology and if run well, would again be in profit even in the cooperative sector,” he said.
The Jarandeshwar mill was under the Enforcement Directorate’s scanner who had alleged misappropriation of money by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and his wife Sunetra due to the manner in which the MSC bank sold it off. Recently the Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai Police had given a clean chit to the sales of cooperative mills by the MSC bank.
Source Link : https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/vishal-patil-tries-luck-sangli-tale-two-mills-9302099/
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