3 Dinajpur sugar mills start cane crushing

The sugar mills' target is to produce 23,675 tonnes of sugar by crashing 2,85,000 tonnes of sugarcane in the current season. Sugarcane has been cultivated on 27,503 acres land this year in greater Dinajpur, but this will not fulfil the sugar production target, official sources said.

Setabganj Sugar Mill, burdened with Tk 75 crore loss, has set a target to produce 6000 tonnes of sugar by crashing 75,000 tonnes of sugarcane. Its sugar recovery rate is 8 per cent, mill sources said.

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Thakurgaon Sugar Mill's target is to produce 7,000 tonnes of sugar from 85,000 tones of sugarcane. It has a burden of Tk 120crose loss.

Among the three, Panchagarh Sugar Mill has set the highest target to produce 9,775 tonnes of sugar from 1.15 lakh tonnes of sugarcane. It has a burden of Tk 130 crore losses.

Sources said that late monsoon floods and massive past attack damaged at least 20 per cent of the sugarcane.

At least 40 per cent sugarcane farmers prefer sale of their sugarcane to molasses producers or traders as they think it more profitable, the sources said. Besides, there is hassle in selling sugarcane to sugar mills, they said.

Talking to this correspondent, some farmers in different areas said the mills will offer them Tk 50 per mound while molasses producers pay them Tk 65 per mound. So, they are not interested to sell sugarcane to mills

Setabganj Sugar Mill Managing Director Md Khorshed Alam said its rate of recovery is low because the machinery is very old. It would be hard to attain the target, he added.

Panchagarh Sugar Mill Managing Director Faiz Ahmed said he hopes to earn profit this year.

The mills earlier gave Tk 5 crore soft loans to farmers to produce sugarcane.