Ponty’s Amroha sugar mill closed

Amroha Sugar Mill of Wave Inc, which was purchased by late Ponty Chandha from UP State Sugar Corporation during the previous BSP regime, has closed down because of technical problems.

The mill is of the 1946 vintage, but the buyer had given a commitment to repair and run it for three consecutive seasons. It ran for two years, before it stopped operations this year without running for one full day.

"We have decided to close down the sugar mill, it is not working out, it was closed due to frequent breakdown. The repairs involved heavy costs, which is not feasible," said J M Gupta, the mill's general manager.

The mill began crushing on December 2 but soon developed "technical problems".

The management informed the District Cane Office that it would repair the mill and sought time till December 7. However, it could not effectively restart the sugar mill.

All this while, farmers stood outside the mill with sugarcane, waiting for the mill to restart. It had a catchment area of 11,000 hectare and included 19,000 farmers.

Finally, on December 13, the sugarcane area allotted to the mill was distributed among seven other mills, located at Dhanuara, Gajraula, Asmoli, Dewan, Chandanpur, Belwada and Syohara.

Of these, the mills at Dhanaura and Chandpur are owned by Wave Inc and both are functional. Wave Inc had also bought the sugar mills at Bijnore, Saharanpur and Bulandshahar and these are running.

The Amroha mill had fixed a target of crushing 68.97 lakh quintal sugarcane in 2012. It had crushed 16.22 lakh quintal in 2010 and 20.88 quintal in 2011. It was functional for 70 days in 2010 and 91 days in 2011.

Asked about the possibility of mill being run in the next season, Gupta said, "It is up to the management but the present machinery is very old and can't be run.

... contd.

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