Karnataka

Sugar factory at Hullatti village starts operations

Karwar: The sugar factory of the GMR Group at Hullatti village in Haliyal taluk started its operations on Friday. With this, the longstanding demand of farmers of the region for a sugar factory has been realised.

The establishment of a sugar factory was the election plank of politicians of various parties for the past 20 years. About a decade ago, some politicians declared that they would establish a sugar factory at Kesoralli village and bought 190 acres of land for the purpose at a throwaway price.

Even the foundation stone was laid for the project, but the factory never came up.

When pressure mounted on the then Heavy Industries Minister R.V. Deshpande, who represented Haliyal constituency five times in a row, he convinced the GMR Group to start the factory. However, the company chose Hullatti as the location for the factory instead of Kesoralli.

The Rs. 350-crore project includes a distillery and a power generation unit. Water required for the factory is taken from the Kali. About 3,500 tonnes of sugarcane will be crushed every day in the factory. It plans to crush nearly seven lakh tonnes of sugarcane this season, according to sources in the factory.

The company has employed people from neighbouring Maharashtra for harvesting the crop.

Trucks and double-trailer tractors are also in place for transporting sugarcane to the factory.

The company will pay farmers Rs. 1,200 for a tonne of sugarcane. It has promised to pay the amount within 15 days of sugarcane being supplied to the factory.

Sources in the Agriculture Department, however, said that yield of sugarcane was lower this year. Only 70,000 tonnes of sugarcane is expected to be available for crushing. Problems faced by growers last year in transporting sugarcane to factories, delay in payment, fluctuation in the market price and uncertainty over functioning of the factory this year have contributed to the decline in sugarcane cultivation, according to farmers’ leaders. Owing to these problems, many farmers had cultivated other crops, the farmers’ leaders said.

The factory is also planning to purchase sugarcane from Belgaum district this year, the sources said.

The company is planning to encourage farmers to cultivate sugarcane in a big way by providing them facilities and incentives.

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