Sindh sugar industry has opposed issuance of no objection certificates (NOCs) for the new sugar mills in Sindh. Referring to a news, published by print media, saying that the government of Sindh has issued NOCs for setting up of seven new sugar mills in Sindh and more NOCs are expected to be granted to six new sugar mills, the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), Sindh Zone strongly opposes such move by the Sindh government on the following grounds.
-Presently, there are 33 sugar mills in Sindh, out of which 30 sugar mills are operational, two non-operational and one under installation, having sugarcane crushing capacity of above 28 million tons for a 150 days season. The sugarcane crop in Sindh has been in the range of nine million to 19 million tons during the past five years, which is 68 percent of the lower crop and 32 percent of higher crop.
It is far shorter than the present requirement of the sugar industry to operate on full capacity.
-- The sugarcane crop is insufficient for the present 30 operational sugar mills, which face great hardships and pay higher price to get sugarcane each year. Addition of more sugar mills will further aggravate the situation. -Sugar mills are already working below 50 percent of their crushing capacity due to short sugarcane crop.
-- Role of middlemen will be more active by commencement of new sugar mills, to fetch higher price of cane and badly damage the growers interests. -Short crop and payment of higher price for sugarcane is bound to start price war among the mills. It will increases cost of sugar production and resultantly sugar price increase for the consumers.
-- Without significant research and development work, it is difficult to raise sugarcane crop size, as has been claimed n the news item that NOCs are issued to increase the sugarcane crop. It is necessary to increase sugarcane crop size before issuance of the NOCs to set up new sugar mills in the province.
The PSMA-SZ requested the Sindh government to divert all its efforts to increase sugarcane varietal development in Sindh as the province needed high yielding varieties of sugarcane, better economy of the industry, growers and the province.
In view the above reasons, the PSMA-SZ further requested the Sindh government to (a) cancel the NOCs issued, (b) reject all pending applications for setting up of new sugar mills, (c) immediately ban installation of new sugar mill in Sindh and (d) all effort be diverted to develop and promote high yielding sugarcane varieties.-PR