After 6 yrs, Pilibhit’s Majhola set to reopen

PILIBHIT: Local traders have helped pave the way for reopening of a sugar mill and a distillery unit at Majola which had been closed about six years ago. Union minister Maneka Gandhi is understood to have played a key role in the matter.
The move is important as the crushing season has begun. So far, two private sugar mills in the district have started operations and two cooperative mills are about to begin crushing.
According to former director of Kisan Cooperative Sugar Mill at Majhola Ashok Bhasin , the sugar factory was set up in 1963. The decision to close it was taken in 2010-11 due to poor condition of its plant and machinery. Simultaneously, distillery also stopped functioning as the supply of molasses, a byproduct of cane, was stopped.
Talking about how big the Majhola mill operations were, Bhasin said as many as 9,000 sugarcane growers of both Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh used to supply cane to this mill. They were attached to LH Sugar Mill, Pilibhit and Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Mill, Barkhera after its closure.
According to him, in 1996, the then district magistrate of Pilibhit, Radha Chauhan, had sent a proposal to the state government for renovation of mill’s plant at a cost of Rs 18 crore. As per the terms, cane growers had to contribute 6.25% of the renovation cost. Farmers duly contributed their share through partial deductions in their sugarcane price but the state government failed to allocate its own share.
Bhasin said then chief minister Mayawati had decided to sell Majhola sugar mill to the private sector in 2008 but the Allahabad high court had turned down her proposal in response to a writ petition filed by the then vice-president of the mill and a local farmer, Malkiyat Singh.
After lying defunct for years, local traders took the initiative to revive it. They appealed to Maneka Gandhi, local MP, to restart the mill. According to the patron of local trade union, HS Negi, the traders were facing a setback in their trade operations due to the closure of the Majhola mill. Many of the traders had migrated to Punjab. The traders said they would not vote in the upcoming UP elections if the mill was not operationalized, Negi added.
As a result of Gandhi’s efforts, an announcement was made in September for changing the status of Majhola sugar mill as a multi state unit.
According to the DM, who is also the administrator of the cooperative sugar mills, Masoom Ali Sarvar, the annual general meeting of the elected delegates of the mill has now adopted a resolution to allot two mills on lease for operation and tenders for the operation will soon be published by the state government.
The DM said Indian Potash Limited had recently proposed to the government to take the two closed industries on lease.