Sugarcane Farmers Demand Nitish Kumar’s Intervention to Reopen Riga Sugar Mill

Patna: Thousands of sugarcane farmers and workers have demanded chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar’s intervention to reopen the Riga Sugar Mill in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district. They have also threatened to intensify their protest and even commit suicide if the mill is liquidated.

Last week, hundreds of farmers and workers protested in front of the main gate of the mill and near the local branch of Bank of India, Riga, demanding the reopening of the mill.

“Sugarcane farmers and workers have been demanding the reopening of the mill. It is a genuine demand and the best option to provide a livelihood to thousands of sugarcane farmers and workers,” Bihar Pradesh Ikh Kastakar Sangh general secretary and president of Ikh Utpadak Sangh, Riga, Nagendar Prasad Singh told Newsclick.

Farmers and workers “fear that the management will sell the machines and other things as scrap, in case, authorities fail to stop attempts to liquidate it”. “We have demanded that the state government should approach the National Company Law Tribunal, Kolkata, on November 1 to stop the likely move to sell the mill machines as scrap,” Singh added.

The state government should “invite experienced private buyers who can run the mill instead of liquidating it. Nearly, 40,000 farmers who annually supplied sugarcane to the mill are having difficulty selling their produce”, Singh said.

After farmers and workers staged a massive protest last Wednesday, Singh contacted the CM’s office to meet Kumar with a delegation to demand the reopening of the mill. “Within hours, Kumar’s office informed me that he wanted to talk about the issue. I informed him in detail and requested to reopen the mill for the sake of farmers and workers of the mill. Kumar assured me and asked me to approach his principal secretary Deepak Kumar,” he said.

According to Singh, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and then-leader of Opposition and current deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav last year “assured farmers of reopening the mill. But nothing happened so far”.

Riga Sugar Mill Workers Union general secretary Manoj Kumar told Newsclick that the mill has been closed since 2020. During the lockdown, hundreds of mill workers under the wage board of sugar industries were “removed temporarily” by the management without prior notice.

“The mill management pasted a notice in English informing the workers that they were laid off citing increasing loss and bank loan. About 700 workers lost jobs due to closure of the mill. These poor workers, including hundreds of seasonal workers, have been struggling for survival as the sugar mill is their only source of livelihood. The government should intervene to reopen the mill,” Manoj said. “Thousands of sugarcane farmers have reportedly not been paid dues for the sugarcane that they had supplied to the mill.”

Govind Singh, a sugarcane farmer, told Newsclick that reopening the mill will help farmers and boost sugarcane production in Sitamarhi and adjacent districts. “The mill was a lifeline for sugarcane-growing farmers as it is the only industry here. Sugarcane farmers have been badly affected after mill was closed.”

Govind said that farmers have no option but to sell their sugarcane to middlemen at half the rate. “The government has announced that farmers can sell their produce to sugar mills in neighbouring states but these sugar mills are 80 km-100 km from here. How can we take our produce with the high transportation cost?”

Another sugarcane farmer Manohar Prasad said that the mill should pay dues without further delay and the mill should reopen.

The management had requested a soft loan from the state government to pay the dues of farmers and workers and in view of the heavy losses. “The sugar mill has been facing a financial crisis for a long time. The mill had taken a heavy loan from the bank but has failed to repay it,” a management official said requesting anonymity.

According to the notice: “The management had for some considerable time in the past been running the sugar plant under utmost constrained, particularly the recent shortage of raw materials in the season of 2019-20 and it facts and circumstances beyond our control marred with huge loss now running under NPA (sic).”

Other sugar mills across the state are in a bad situation as well. Thousands of farmers have been demanding an increase in sugarcane prices and payment of their dues from mills and have accused the state government of neglected them and not paying their dues on time.

As per the Sugarcane Development Department’s website, only 10 out of 28 sugar mills are operational—five are in Bagaha, Harinagar, Narkatiaganj, Majhauli and Lauria (West Champaran). The sugar mill in Chanpatia has been closed.

Three sugar mills are in Gopalganj district followed and one each in East Champaran, Samastipur district. The Riga Sugar Mill is closed as well.

With half of the sugar mills in West and East Champaran districts, these are the largest sugarcane-producing districts of Bihar, followed by Gopalganj, Sitamarhi, Samastipur, Madhubani, Vaishali and Siwan.