Mandya: After a one-week delay, the crushing operations for the year 2023-24 began at MySugar factory in Mandya on Thursday.

Sugar Minister Shivanand Patil launched the crushing operations at the 90-year-old Sugar factory, the only State-run Sugar factory in the State, yesterday. The crushing was earlier scheduled to be launched on June 30.

Speaking on the occasion, Shivanand Patil said, “The factory will crush 1,500-2,000 tonnes for the first few days and later increase the capacity to 3,000-5,000 tonnes per day.” A  technical snag in the turbine had resulted in a slight delay in the commencement of the operations, he added.

Maintaining that the factory will pay the FRP (Fair and Remunerative Price) fixed by the Government to procure Sugarcane from farmers this year, the Minister said the farmers were paid Rs. 2,800 per tonne of sugarcane last year despite low recovery.

Mandya District In-charge Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy said the factory had become functional due to the Government’s intervention and expressed confidence that MySugar will function efficiently from here on.

Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambarish, in her address, expressed confidence that the commencement of crushing operations at MySugar would augur well for the farmers of Mandya region. Noting that there are certain issues plaguing the factory including pending electricity bill dues amounting to Rs. 40 crore, she hoped that all issues will be sorted out in due course.

The Sugar factory was revived by the previous BJP Government after it was shut down due to mounting losses a few years ago.

MLAs Ganiga Ravikumar and  A.B. Rameshbabu Bandisiddegowda, Mandya Deputy Commissioner Dr. Kumar, MySugar MD Appasaheb Patil, farmer leader Sunanda Jayaram and others were present.