Sanjivani suffers massive loss of Rs 8.10 crore

PONDA: The loss-making Sanjivani sugar factory located at Dayanandnagar-Dharbandora suffered a massive loss of Rs 8.10 crore during the last academic year (2017-18). This is the biggest-ever loss in the history of the 46-year-old state’s lone sugar factory.

As per information, failure of a deal undertaken to bring in huge amount of sugarcane from outside the state last year, burden of various loans and heavy sugar production cost are the main reasons for such a heavy loss.

According to officials, the factory was suffering a loss of around Rs 2-3 crore yearly in the recent past. But last year, the factory faced a huge setback when the deal undertaken by former managing director Umeshchandra Joshi failed. As per the deal, he had paid Rs 5 crore to an Aurangabad-based agency for supplying 102 ‘tolies’ (workers for harvesting) with transport facility before the start of the crushing season. The factory had set a goal of getting 1 lakh tonne of sugarcane from outside the state from the agency itself. However, the agency failed to deliver the services.

It was an experiment conducted by the former managing director to bring in huge amount of sugarcane from outside the state expecting that there would be no shortage of cane once crushing season starts. Even the supply of ‘tolies’ to the farmers was a part of the deal. But neither did the Aurangabad-based agency send its sugarcane nor its workers to harvest cane in the state, said officials, on condition of anonymity.

As the state farmers were assured of ‘tolies’ as a part of the deal, they did not contact any other ‘tolies’. However, when the agency failed to provide the ‘tolies’, the panicky farmers had to bring in their own ‘tolies’ for harvesting and the factory had to bear with those expenses too, the officials said.

The Rs 5 crore paid to the agency as advances added to the yearly loss of the factory in the 2017-18 financial year, said officials from the factory and added that the actual loss of the factory is around Rs 3.10 crore despite having a sugar production of 58,336 quintals last year. Heavy sugar production cost and maintenance expenditure for the factory are the reasons behind it.

As per the information, the factory spends around Rs 2.50 crore yearly as maintenance expenditure on the factory. Moreover, the production cost of a quintal of sugar is double the market price of the sugar. According to officials, if the market price of sugar is Rs 3,000 per quintal, the factory spends around Rs 6,000 to produce the quintal of sugar due to the labour and other costs involved. Sources also said that the factory has a loan burden of around Rs 50 crore since the last ten years on which the factory pays around Rs 50 lakh per month as interest amount to banks.

When contacted, factory administrator Damodar Morajkar said that the factory suffered a major loss due to technical stoppages in the factory, as there was not enough of sugarcane supply from the farmers. The factory requires around 800 metric tonnes of sugarcane daily to keep it running and once stopped, it requires a lot of wood to heat up the tank to start the crushing. This has increased the expenditure of the factory. Besides, failure of the deal undertaken with the Aurangabad-based agency has hampered the budget planning of the factory and also added to its loss burden.

When asked about the action initiated to recover the amount, Morajkar said that the government has suspended the former managing director Joshi and a complaint has been registered with police to recover the Rs 5 crore paid to the agency. Inquiry in this regard is under process, he said.