Lack of sugarcane shuts Sarlahi sugar mills

By Our Correspondent,Sarlahi, Mar. 8: Mahalaxmi Sugar Mill, located at Bagdah in Godaita Municipality, Sarlahi district, has stopped sugarcane crushing for this year.

The Mill stopped sugarcane crushing after the farmers stopped bringing sugarcane. This year, the industry has crushed around 1.09 million quintals of sugarcane.

Farmers from the southern part of the district as well as from across the border have also sold sugarcane to the industry, located near the border area.

Mahalaxmi Sugar Mill has claimed that it is gradually paying the farmers.

Local Shivashankar Mahato said that the mill was closed issuing a notice after not getting the sugarcane and the farmers were getting paid according to the list.

In Sarlahi, Annapurna Sugar Industry, Dhankaul were closed two weeks ago.

The industry has not paid the farmers. Out of the three sugar industries in the district, Indushankar Sugar Industry, Hariwan is still crushing sugarcane.

Indushankar has already crushed 2.8 million quintals of sugarcane.

Thakur Nepal, administration chief of the industry, informed that the industry will be closed after crushing sugarcane for another two weeks.

The country's largest sugarcane industry, Insushankar, has set a target of crushing around 3 million quintals of sugarcane this year.

Nepal said that Indushankar has already paid Rs. 600 million to farmers.

Although the sugar industry has been shut down due to lack of sugarcane, the raw-sugar crusher industry is still running in the district.

As the sugar mills linger in payment, farmers sell sugarcane to the raw-sugar crushing industry at a cheap price. The government has fixed price for sugarcane at Rs. 610 per quintal this year.