Bitter pill: Future bleak for Nizam Sugar Factory

HYDERABAD:  The Nizam started it with a vision and successive governments disinvested with a mission. This is the bitter story of the eight-decade old Nizam Sugar Factory also known as Nizam Deccan Sugars Limited (NDSL). Once the largest sugar factory in Asia, the factory was shut in 2015 and its revival is very difficult now. The seventh Nizam started the factory in 1937 to save money on the imports of sugar.Families of several workers are in serious financial hardship due to the factory’s closure, as they haven’t received their salaries for five years. 

NDSL’s staff & workers union’s general secretary S Kumara Swami said: “Politicos use our plight to further their interests. No one is bothered that our lives are on the line.” Bodhan Sugarcane Growers Association general secretary G Gopal Reddy says revival of NDSL has become a political slogan for all parties, but very little has been done to help sugarcane growers.  

The Nizam laid the railway line exclusively for the sugar factory and brought engines for the trains from London, recalled former employees.Originally, the factory was started in Bodhan, Nizamabad district. About 16,000 acres of agriculture land in Bodhan would cater to the factory. Later, the management set up six more sugar factories in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. 

However, the factory’s downfall began when the then N Chandrababu Naidu government started to disinvest the factory in Swiss Challenge mode, recalled Swami. Naidu handed over some of the factory lands to SCs, STs and BCs. Some lands were auctioned for a throwaway price of `20,000 per acre, recalled a retired employee, adding that now the cost of the land was around `50 lakh per acre. Naidu’s decision was against his predecessor NT Rama Rao’s decision to not sell government lands. 

During Naidu’s regime, Delta Sugars took over Bodhan, Metpalli and Medak factories. After YS Rajasekhara Reddy became Chief Minister, he opposed Naidu’s plans and decided to take back the factory into the government’s control. The YSR government constituted a Legislative Committee to study and submit a report. However, the committee’s report was not implemented by YSR government.(The story is the first in a two-part series, the second of which will appear tomorrow)

Alternative to paddy   

Senior Congress leader P Sudharshan Reddy says farmers are facing serious crises in Nazamabad as paddy is not getting them remunerative prices anymore. In this context, sugarcane is a better alternative, he said