Pawar: Weaving dreams

Patna, Feb. 13: Bihar?s ?USP? of agriculture and related industries received a boost today with Union minister Sharad Pawar announcing that companies from outside the state have sent in proposals for setting up five sugar mills and reviving a closed one.

While southern major Raj Shri Sugar Mills has evinced interest in setting up units in Bagaha and Muzaffarpur, besides reviving the factory at Motipur, the Hindustan Bajaj group wants to start mills in Gopalganj and Champaran. Another industrialist, Ashok Goel, has also sent in a proposal for establishing a mill at a suitable location.

Bihar had 30 mills, 15 in the public sector, in the years after Independence and the state accounted for 26 per cent of the country?s sugar production. The number of functional mills has now come down to nine, which produce barely six per cent of the country?s sugar. All mills set up in the government sector, managed by the Bihar State Sugar Corporation, have shut down.

?Eastern states like Bihar, Bengal and Orissa consume more sugar than the other regions of the country. Among these states, Bihar has the maximum potential for sugar production, so much so that if fully utilised, sugar produced in the state can be easily exported,? Pawar said.

After a high-level meeting with chief minister Nitish Kumar, Pawar said the government has to formulate a detailed policy for inviting investment in the sugar sector. ?We promise all help but the initiative has to be taken by the state government,? he added.

The chief minister promised that revival of the sugar industry was top of the government?s agenda. ?It has already announced incentives for entrepreneurs who invest in the state. A detailed policy for the sugar sector is being prepared on priority basis. We expect the proposals to take off and construction work on the sugar mills to start by the end of this year,? Nitish said.

The government as well as the entrepreneurs favour setting up of ?integrated? plants that will not only produce sugar but also have ethanol processing systems and facilities for captive power generation. The power produced can be utilised to run a particular mill and the surplus supplied locally.

The once-thriving sugar industry of Bihar languished on account of several factors, including governmental apathy, lack of modernisation, labour disputes, mounting dues and low procurement price.

The government has been talking about adopting the ?Maharashtra model? of sugar production in Bihar with emphasis on cooption of farmers in the system on the basis of assured procurement price. The quality of sugarcane produced is another area of concern as high-yielding varieties have rarely been used in the state and farmers have relied on the old methods of production.

The government is also toying with the idea of promoting contract farming in Bihar.

As part of this process, big companies enter into a contract with local farmers to provide them with all inputs, including high-yielding seeds and fertilisers, and they also buy back the produce.