Mill ‘closure’ in Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann’s constituency leaves Dhuri farmers in a fix
Harjit Singh Bugra is a farmer from a village in Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s constituency, Dhuri, in the state’s Sangrur district. Last year, he had sown sugarcane on 10 acres of his land in Bugra village. This crop is now ready to be harvested but Bugra is a fix as the local Bhagwanpura Sugar Mill, which still owes dues in crores to farmers, is unlikely to pick the cane.
The mill, which is run by a Uttar Pradesh-based businessman, is yet to pay around Rs 17 crore to farmers from the last 2022-23 season; of this, approximately Rs 2.5 crore is the government’s share. To make matters worse, the management stuck a notice on its wall on February 28 this year, saying, “Farmers are informed that next year Bhagwanpura Sugar Mill will not operate. Farmers are informed not to sow sugarcane.”
Sowing is done in the October-November period and about 3,000 acres of land in the area had come under sugarcane by the time the notice appeared, Bugra, who is also president of the Ganna Sangharsh Committee in Punjab, said. “If the problem is not resolved, we will burn effigies of the Punjab government on Dussehra. We will be giving this in writing to the administration,” he said.
The mill owes Bugra Rs 3.5 lakh from the last financial year. “I used to sow sugarcane on 60 acres of land about a decade ago but this gradually came down to 10 acres due to payment issues. Sugarcane takes less water than paddy but when farmers are not being given payments and the mill is planning to close down, what should we do?” he said.
Premjit Bhojowali from Bhojowali village in Dhuri, who sows sugarcane on 30 acres of land, says the mill owes him around Rs 16 lakh.
“I do sugarcane farming on 35 acres of land and the mill is yet to pay me Rs 18 lakh. Now, we are in a fix as to whether we should continue sugarcane farming or not,” Ranjidh Singh Babbanpur of Babbanpur village in Sangrur said.
The Bhagwanpura Sugar Mill
The Bhagwanpura Sugar Mill has been in existence since the early 1950s, under different owners. It caters to farmers in Sangrur, Malerkotla, Barnala and Patiala in Punjab and some farmers in Haryana. A UP-based D P Yadav acquired the mill in 1996.
“The area under sugarcane used to be nearly 20,000 acres in 2017-18. As payment problems started, gradually the area kept reducing. Today, only 3,000 acres of area is under sugarcane,” said Avtar Singh Tari, who only grows sugarcane on 2 acres of land. Out of these 3,000 acres of land, 1,850 acres are in Sangrur district and a big chunk is in Dhuri constituency, which is popular as ‘CM city’ among the farmers.
“After Mann became the CM, we felt relieved and thought that now we would be heard but the CM does not meet us. Farmers are running from pillar to post to figure out what we should do next,” said Bugra. He pointed out that on October 11, they were expecting Mann to meet them on October 17 as he was in Sangrur but he did not.
Tari, a member of the Ganna Sangharsh Committee and a resident of Dhuri , said that the notice announcing the mill’s shutdown came as a shock to the farmers. “We were taken aback after reading the notice on February 28 because sowing starts in October end or November and it had already been done by over 400 farmers in Sangrur, Malerkotla and Patiala districts,” he said. “What special treatment? Farmers from the CM’s constituency are running from pillar to post to find out who will purchase our crop next month,” he added.
“Some part of the mature stems are left in the soil during harvesting and the cane regrows from this stem next year…this works for at least two years so sugarcane is a two-year crop,” he explained.
Past protests
Over the years, farmers in Dhuri have staged regular protests to get their money released. In June 2019, an auction notice was issued against the Bhagwanpura Sugar Mill to recover Rs 74 crore that was to be paid to the farmers. But the auction never took place and the owner cleared the payment in parts. In September 2022, Rs 7.82 crore was outstanding from the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons due to which auction orders were issued yet again. “Eventually, many auctions were deferred and the outstanding amount was cleared by the mill,” said Bugra. “In the past five years, payment is released only after protests are staged,” added Jagtar Singh, a farmer from Sangrur’s Ghanaur Khurd village.
What now?
The farmers met Sangrur Deputy Commissioner Jitendra Jorwal a few days ago. “Farmers met me recently and I have assured them that they need not worry and their crop will be lifted for sure,” Jorwal said. When asked about the mill’s notice, he said, “I am not aware of any such notice.”
Last week, the farmers from Dhuri also met Congress leader and Kapurthala MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh, who runs sugar mills, and requested him to take over the mill. Singh is the chairman of Raha Sugars Limited.
Sources said that if the sugar mill does not operate, the sugarcane crop will be sent to Amloh sugar mill in the Ahmedgarh area of Malerkotla or the Budhewal sugar mill in Ludhiana.
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