Ambala, Haryana: Sugarcane harvesting has been affected due to untimely rain resulting in lower cane supply to the mills for crushing, reports Tribune India.
This has disrupted the cane-crushing target of the sugar mills in the district. According to available information, the Shahabad Cooperative Sugar Mill has set a target to crush over 70 lakh quintals of the cane but crushed only 53 lakh quintals so far. The mill has a capacity of crushing 50,000 quintals of cane per day but now left with just 26,000 quintals on Friday.
Earlier the operations at the mill were halted due to the farmers’ agitation over SAP for sugarcane.
Rajiv Prashad, Managing Director of the sugar mill said, “We have issued a schedule to the farmers to bring the cane but this has been disrupted due to the rain. The mill is running at a lower capacity causing loss. We were expecting the season to close by April 25 but now we have to extend the season till the first week of May.”
“As most of the farmers harvest cane manually, the harvesting activity has been halted due to heavy rainfall. Besides, delayed payments from the Naraingarh sugar mill continue to be a matter of concern for the farmers,” said Vinod Rana, president of Ganna Kisan Sangharsh Samiti.
