Visakhapatnam: The three sugar mills in the district have witnessed the lower sugarcane crushing for the ongoing season indicating a crisis for the farmers and mill owners. Many cane growers in north Andhra Pradesh, which has five sugar mills, are looking towards alternate crops as they have neither received profits nor pending amounts from the factories.
The area under sugarcane cultivation has halved from 40,000 hectares to 20,000 hectares in the district in recent years. A farmer from the region said that there is no assurance of cane payment in time and no support price for the farmers forcing us to move towards other commercial crops.
According to the news report published in The Times of India, all three sugar factories owe around Rs 10 crore dues of the 30,000 farmers. T
Etikoppaka sugar mill that was crushing around 1.25 lakh tonnes each season is now crushing 32,000 tonnes this season.
The Tandava sugar mill that used to crush around 2 lakh tonnes is crushing around 40,000 tonnes. The Govada sugar mill which was crushing more than 5 lakh tonnes every season is now crushing less than 4 lakh tonnes of cane.
