Ponda: Farmers across the Goa state will be launching a protest outside the Sanjivani sugar mill at Dharbandora on January 8, 2020, over the slow pace of sugarcane harvesting and transportation in the state. They have demanded the increase in manpower to harvest the cane.
Rajendra Desai, president of Sugarcane Farmers Association, stated that the cooperative minister Govind Gaude had promised to address the issue. Still, the administration has failed to provide manpower to speed up the cane harvesting. Farmers are using their own workforce to harvest the cane.
He said that if the mill has till date supplied 6,000 tonnes of sugarcane to Khanapur. If the situation continues, most of the cane will dry up and farmers will be at loss. Considering the situation, we will be organising a protest in the state to ensure that the mill provides additional workforce and speed up cane harvesting and transportation.
The farmers are also raising the demand that the government should compensate the farmers if their cane dries up and pay them as the mill paid them last year.
The mill administration stated that at present 34 tolis (1 toli comprises 20 workers) are operating and 15 more tolis will be joining soon. Factory officer S V Sangodkar said that the mill has supplied around 6,400 tonne of sugarcane in the last one month due to lack of manpower. Considering it, the factory officials have urged Khanapur-based factory to provide manpower which the factory has agreed to. The speed will increase once additional workforce joins the existing teams.
To Listen to this News click on the play button.
