Birgunj Sugar Factory: Some Reminiscences

On April 20, the Minister for Industry, Commerce, and Supplies stated that the Birgunj Sugar Factory, which had been shuttered for some time, will be reopened. This news transported me back to the Nepali year 2023 BS, when I was the branch head of the Agricultural Development Bank in Birgunj. I was only vaguely familiar with the firm at the time, but I recall seeing its general manager, Mr. Purna Prasad Sharma, at a wedding reception in a village east of Kalaiya.

Mr. Sharma, a Naradevi resident, was previously the principal chemist at the Morang Sugar Mills in Biratnagar, where he also had marital ties. I'm not sure how long he worked there, but he was the General Manager of the Birgunj Sugar Factory when I met him. He was of medium height, middle-aged, and had an impressive and pleasant appearance, as well as grey hair.

He was delivering information about the factory and himself to an acquaintance at the wedding, a few yards away from the rites. He mentioned his monthly salary of Rs. 5000, which was larger than any other executive in Nepal at the time. I was astounded by his salary amount (I was earning Rs. 440 at the time), but I was also glad that my country had an agriculture industry capable of paying executives handsomely. I assumed he was driven by the salary because the factory was new and the government was committed to its smooth operation, administration, and production at full capacity.

Mr. Sharma had to go beyond the factory to meet and ensure farmers in Parsa and Bara that the mill authority was committed to timely payment of sugarcane purchases and to inspire them to expand their cane cultivation areas. The USSR government fully sponsored the factory as a turnkey project. It was responsible for two things: producing sugar and encouraging farmers to plant sugarcane as a lucrative crop. Mr. Sharma also stated the factory's capability, which includes equipment capable of crushing 1000 metric tonnes of sugarcane and producing 10 metric tonnes of crystal sugar per day, as well as molasses, a byproduct of rectified spirits.

Although I never confirmed Mr. Sharma's assertions regarding the factory's crushing and production capability, his statements made me question if the executive who received such a hefty pay had to be a big technocrat as well. I had no notion when Mr. Sharma departed Biratnagar to become the factory's first general manager until that day.

At Factory Premises

Due to the difficult loan processes and inadequate staff at a bank office in Parsa and Bara where I worked, relatively few individual farmers had access to its services. I was in charge of four employees, including the office attendant, and we ran the office out of a rented facility in Birgunj's Shreepur neighbourhood, next to the National Trading buildings. The structure housed both an office and a housing, with two rooms for the office and two more for me and a junior accounting staff member who lived there with his family.

A fresh circumstance emerged after a meeting at a wedding, and I began meeting with Mr. Sharma. My head office in Kathmandu had made a fresh judgement about my branch and the factory's cane plantation budget requirements. Due to my bank's policy of lending to farmers, the factory was in desperate need of finances. My head office had decided to prioritise helping sugarcane growing in those areas because the bank and the factory had a huge scope combined. As a result, my office had direct access to the factory.

As a result, I contacted Mr. Sharma and, via him, his cane manager, Akrur Narsingh Rana. Mr. Rana was also quite nice and would ask me to his office for long chats. He even paid me a visit in the morning during off-hours to review office practises over a cup of tea. Both of our offices had an urgent plan for my branch because the factory management had recommended that we relocate to the factory premises for free in order to more effectively implement the lending procedure. This move will make our office more accessible to cane farmers. Deliberations lasted over a month, and I visited with Mr. Rana several times.

The branch was eventually transferred to the plant. My employees and I would travel to the factory in Birgunj's outskirts by rickshaw or bicycle. This relocation provided us with a new opportunity to connect with farmers and assist sugarcane production in the region.

The Ratoon Crop

Because my goal as a banker was to connect with farmers, I began organising intensive field excursions. As my office could not yet afford a dedicated field trip vehicle, I would visit fields by hitching a ride with district agriculture extension agents or American Peace Corps volunteers. We would frequently travel through isolated portions of both districts where there were no four-wheel drive roads and only bullock cart routes. The wheels would sink deep into the dust during the winter, then become stuck in the mud during the rainy season.

Except during the crushing season, most of the sites we visited had extensive tracts of sugarcane bushes that rose tall, offering refuge for jackals and hiding spots for residents to relieve themselves. The factory yards would be filled with a long line of carts and cart-men as soon as the crushing schedule was announced, waiting for their sugarcane bundles to be weighed on the bridge before being unloaded into the crushing facilities. Farmers were drawn to sugarcane plantations for a variety of reasons. If loans were their only source of income, the greater benefit was that after one planting, the crop required no further planting for at least two years. Sugarcane crops are ratoon plants, which means that harvested stumps re-sprout as the next crop.

An agricultural tools factory was attached to the manufacturing area in the north and made and provided numerous handy tools in quantity to the market. After about a month, my head office directed me to do a field research in certain Terai and mountainous regions to assess the situations of cooperative societies and consumer stores under government policy. I resigned my bank job after this study trip because I wanted to join the government as an officer.

Mr. Purna Prasad Sharma and I met again around three decades later in Birtanagar, where he had chosen to retire, near to his wife's paternal relations. I tried to remind him of our many meetings in the Birgunj factory, but he couldn't recollect any of them, such as how I dealt with his cane manager, Mr. Rana, or how my office was relocated within the factory grounds. Both Sharma and Rana have now died. I still remember how the sugar factory crushed sugarcane and produced hundreds of metric tonnes of sugar every season.

Sugarcane Plantation Disappeared

Morang Sugar Mills has joined the list of factories that have closed, including the previously listed one. It serves as a sorrowful reminder of the sugarcane bushes that once lined the roadways in Parsa and Bara, but have since vanished along with the factory's skeleton.

I also recall a field trip I took with a group that included Pokhara's KeshavRaj RajBhandary. Years later, he stepped down from two high-ranking government positions: chief secretary and chief election commissioner. But when I initially met him, he was as inexperienced as I was.

Birgunj was his first visit outside of Kathmandu, and the crowded road that day shocked him. He was especially taken with a gigantic road machine that passed by, with two large back wheels and two smaller front wheels - he'd never seen anything like it before. It was nothing more than a tractor, a normal field and road engine!

However, the minister's recent announcement concerning the skeletal factory is out of the ordinary. His vote bank has put him to the test, despite the fact that it is a popularity gimmick.

(The author is a retired lecturer of English)