By crushing Sugarcane 3,600 tonnes more than the target, the North Bengal Sugar Mills of Lalpur stopped sugarcane crushing for the 2023-'24 season on Sunday morning.
Due to the crushing of excessive sugarcane than the target, the Mills are likely to earn profit this year after 19 years of loss. At present the mills have in the storage 9,500 tonnes of sugar amounting to Taka 118 crore 75 lakh.
According to NBSM sources, in the 2023-'24 crushing season, the mills started the crushing of sugarcane in November last year with a target of producing 12,250 tonnes of sugar by crushing 185,000 metric tonnes of sugarcane. In 114 working days, the mills produced nearly 10,700 metric tonnes of sugar by crushing 185,633 metric tonnes of sugar cane and closed the operation of the mills. The rate of extraction of sugar was 5,64 per cent. The sugarcane farmers will get Taka 13 crore 50 lakh outstanding bills from the Mills authorities.
During the last year (2022-2023 FY), the sugarcane crushing was stopped after 52 days of operations for the want of sugarcane. By crushing 81,129 metric tonnes of sugarcane only 4,807 metric tonnes of sugar was produced. The mills were incurring continuous loss due to the want of sufficient sugarcanes from 2005.
