Sugarcane crushing began in the country’s biggest sugar mill – Carew & Company Sugar Mills in Darshana widely known as Darshana Sugar Mills. Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi and State Minister for Industries Kamal Ahmed Mojumder formally inaugurated the crushing on Friday.
Chuadanga-2 MP of the Jatiya Sangsad Haji Md Ali Azgar Tagar, Industries Secretary Zakia Sultana, Chairman of Bangladesh Sugar & Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC) Md Arifur Rahman Apu and Deputy Commissioner of Chuadanga Md Nasrul Islam Sarker were present on the occasion.
Being established by Carew and Company in 1938 the sugar mill had been incurring losses for the years together. Now following the increase in suar price by the government the mill is seeing profit. Although the price of sugar has increased the price of sugarcane has not increased as per expectation of the sugarcane growers.The present price of sugarcane at mill gate is Tk 140 per maund but the farmers demand Tk 250 per maund.
Managing Director (MD) Carew & Company Md Mosharraf Hossain told the Bangladesh Post that all preparations had been completed to start crushing in the mill but following the decrease in production surrounding the mill area production target has reduced to half. We hope farmers will increase cultivation of sugarcane around the mill if we can continue production.
In the current season sugarcane has been cultivated on around 4 thousand 600 hundred and 27 acres of land. Besides, 4000 metric tonnes of Kushtia Sugar mill will be crushed in our mill, the managing director said.
Darshana Sugar Mill will crush 1150 metric tonnes of sugarcane on 30-40 crushing days in this crushing season. Production target of 3600 MTs of sugar has been set by crushing 55-60 thousand MTs of sugarcane, the MD added. If everything goes well the mill may be profitable overcoming huge losses, the authorities expected.
Mentionable, of the total 15 nationalised sugar mills under BFIC, six sugar mills have been closed down due to continuous losses and the remaining 9 mills continue production.
The running mills are –Carew & Company in Darshana, Mubarakganj Sugar mill in Jhenaidah, Faridpur Sugar Mill, Rajshahi Sugar Mill, North Bengal sugar Mill in Natore, Thakurgaon Sugar Mill, Joypurhar Sugar Mill and Zill Bangla Sugar Mill in Jamalpur.
On the other hand, the closed 6 sugar mills are – Kushtia Sugar Mill, Pabna Sugar Mill, Panchagarh Sugar Mill, Shyampur Sugar Mill in Rangpur, Rangpur Sugar Mill in Gaibandha and Setabganj Sugar Mill in Setabganj.