Bheemasingi Sugar Factory in doldrums

Bheemasingi (Vizianagaram): Bheemasingi Sugars Factory, which was being operated under cooperative module, is in doldrums as the firm is not in a position to meet its operational expenditure. 

Apart from this, the selling price of the sugar is much lesser than the production cost. Even the old machinery is creating frequent functional disruptions. This cooperative sugar firm is located at Bheemasingi village in Jami mandal in the district and it is supporting the farmers of Jami, L Kota, S Kota, Vizianagaram and Padmanabham mandal in Visakhapatnam district. 

Around 20,000 farmers are supplying sugar to this firm for the past few years. But the number of farmers and crop area is gradually decreasing in the past few years as the management is failed to pay the bills.

Even the sugar price in wholesale market is also come down due to heavy production in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh. The Union government had estimated that the nation would produce 250 lakh quintals of sugar in 2017-18 financial year, but it has touched 330 lakh quintals.

The sugar factory is paying Rs 2,750 to the farmers per tonne sugar cane and it is spending around Rs 600 on each tonne to produce each quintal of pure sugar. Now the production cost of each quintal of sugar reached Rs 3,350. But the firm is selling the sugar at Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,000 per quintal. It indicates that the firm is facing minimum of Rs 400 to Rs 500 loss per quintal. 

Still, the firm has 51,000 quintals of sugar in its warehouses. Even the company is not in a position to clear the bills to the farmers who supplied cane to the company. It is waiting to sell the sugar at a higher price and clear the pending bills, but the present market situation is not conducive. 

V Ramana Rao, Managing Director of the Bheemasingi Cooperative Sugars said: “Yes we are in deep trouble as we can’t sell the sugar at a lesser price. We have to clear the bills of the farmers and searching for the alternative ways to face the situation.

First all, we have to improve the performance of the firm and replace the old equipment, machinery with modern ones to increase the production. We will pay the pending bills soon.”