Panaji, Jul 17 (IANS): Around 200 sugarcane farmers were detained by Goa police for allegedly blocking the national highway at Dharbandora in South Goa, demanding assurance to restart operations of the lone sugar factory in the state.
The President of Utpadan Sanghatana (sugarcane producers' association), Rajendra Desai, told IANS that 200 farmers have been detained by the police.
“We were demanding to know whether the government intends to restart the sugar factory along with the ethanol plant. But we have not got any response from the government,” he said.
In 2020, the BJP government had announced to shut the operations of the sugar factory and since then local farmers were selling their produce to neighboring states.
The Sanjivani Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana was set up in 1972 by the first Chief Minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodkar, at Dharbandora in South Goa. It had an excellent track record at the initial stage with many farmers engaged to take up production of this crop.
The sugar factory, however, went into losses in the last one decade or more, and three years ago its operations were stopped stating that it was not viable to operate. It was said then that after the operations are stopped, a new plant will be installed, which would also give by-product. However, this has not turned into reality yet.
In a bid to bring the loss-making factory to profit, late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had in 2017 advocated the need to make by-product out of sugarcane.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari, during the Assembly election campaign in 2017, had stressed the need to generate fuel from farm products. He had said that alternate fuel can be generated from rice straw, wheat straw, cotton straw and used sugarcane waste. This had given hope to the sugarcane farmers that the factory will grow and they will get good opportunities to sell their produce.
On Monday, the agitating farmers questioned whether an ethanol plant will turn into reality. However, as they did not get the favourable answer, they tried to block the national highway.