Bheemasingi Sugars in deep trouble

Bheemasingi (Vizianagaram): Bheemasingi Sugar factory, which was being operated under the cooperative module in the district, is in doldrums as the company management is not able to meet its operational expenditure.

The company is in deep troubles and not in a position to pay the cane bills to farmers and salaries to its workers. Even the old machinery in the factory is creating frequent functional disruptions. Though the management tried to get financial support from AP Cooperative Bank, it failed to get guarantee from the government.

The factory is located in Bheemasingi village of Jami mandal but it is supporting the farmers of Jami, L Kota, S Kota, Vizianagaram and Padmanabham mandal of Visakhapatnam district. Around 20,000 farmers are supplying sugar to this factory for the past few years.

Though the Union government has estimated that the nation would produce 250 lakh quintals of sugar in 2017-18 it has crossed 330 lakh quintals. The factory has crushed 20,000 tonnes of cane this season so far but it could not pay bills to farmers. The company has around 240 employees during peak season and in unreason, around 120 workers will be in the firm.

The company could not pay salaries to the staff for the past two months amounting to Rs 60 lakh. Even the sugar cane farmers also are in the same position. Factory Managing Director B V Ramana Rao said the company approached the APCOB for loan and so far we could not get support from government for guarantee.

“Currently, we have 34,000 quintals of sugar and we approached the government to give loan against value of sugar quantity. We are expecting Rs 6 crore loan against the sugar quantity. Once we get the financial support from bank, we will clear all pending bills. We have to pay salaries to workers for two months amounting to Rs 50 lakh and Rs 5 crore cane bills to farmers,” he said.