Despite serious political differences, the two leaders Sharad Pawar and Dilip Walse Patil presented themselves for a co-operative function in Pune on Sunday last week. The event was a technical seminar organized by National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited at Vasantdada Sugar Institute.
Dilip Walse Patil who was a protégé of Pawar and was the Chairman of apex sugar co-op body till recently, joined Ajit Pawar, ditching the veteran politician. The technical seminar was also no less important as it aimed to herald a new age in the sugar industry.
The Seminar on “cleaning cane before crushing” was organized by NFCSF and was attended by Federation Chairman Jaiprakash Dandegaonkar, Managing Director Prakash Naikanware, Former Minister Jayantrao Patil, Rajesh Tope and other representatives from sugar cooperatives. It is reported that Ajit Pawar was also supposed to attend the event but due to his preoccupations he could not make it to the show.
“In India, this technology has not been adopted by sugar mills yet. After procuring sugarcanes from farmers, we put them into crushing machines without any cleaning. The dust on sugarcane harms the sugar recovery”, he said on the phone.
Naiknavare further informed, “In a bid to educate the representatives of sugar co-ops about this technology, NFCSF organized a seminar in which representatives from Brazil’s sugar industry visited India. The cost of installing a sugarcane cleaning machine is around Rs 50 lakh”, he added.
He also informed that three cooperative sugar mills of Maharashtra i.e. Rajarambapu Patil Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, Vishwasrao Naik Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana and Sahyadri Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana showed keen interest in installing the machines and asked the team from Brazil to visit their co-ops. We will organize such technical seminars in other states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and other states as well, he added.
“Besides, the information was exchanged on setting up of bio-CNG plants, which is a renewable source of transport fuel. India is thinking to exploit the same in a big way with added emphasis on it from the current govt”, he stated.
It bears recalling that there are 259 cooperative sugar mills in the country out of which 105 are in Maharashtra, 28 in Uttar Pradesh, 19 in Gujarat and other states.
The Union Ministry of Cooperation has taken many new initiatives in strengthening cooperative sugar mills like providing income tax relief and resolving their long pending issues.
