Mandya: The woes of the nearly century old State-owned Mysore Sugars Company limited or MySugar factory in Mandya, seems to be never ending as in a latest incident, the factory has reportedly been cheated of Rs. 2 crore by a labour contractor who had promised  sugarcane cutting by bringing labourers from Vijayapura and Ballari districts.

Speaking at ‘Save MySugar’ event organised here on Friday, ADC Dr. H.L. Nagaraju, who is also the MySugar MD, said that a Maistry had brought labourers from Vijayapura and Ballari for sugarcane cutting. Subsequently, he (Nagaraju) paid Rs. 2 crore to the Maistry as advance believing his promise that sugarcane would be cut for factory supplies. But now, no labourer is engaged in sugarcane cutting and even the Maistry, who was paid money, has gone missing & as such it has become difficult to recover the money paid to him, the ADC rued.

Maintaining that this issue is bothering him every moment, Nagaraju said that as the MD of MySugar, he has been unable to answer to farmers relentless calls for sending labourers for cutting of fully grown sugarcane.

Reiterating that he was feeling very painful seeing at the plight of sugarcane growers, he bemoaned that local youth were not coming forward for sugarcane cutting and as such the factory had to depend on labourers from faraway districts.

Noting that all his hopes for the revival of the factory in a strong way have been dashed, Dr. Nagaraju urged the labour contractor to bring labourers and start cutting of sugarcane, which will lose yield as days pass by.

Meanwhile, MySugar factory Chairman C.D. Gangadhar, in a contradiction of the amount of money lost, said that the labour contractor has taken away Rs. 1 crore and not Rs. 2 crore as announced by the Factory MD Dr. Nagaraju. This contradictory statement has given rise to confusions among the growers.

Gangadhar, while admitting that the labour contactor (Maistry) from North Karnataka has cheated the factory by failing to bring workers, said that the advance money paid was Rs. 1 crore and not Rs. 2 crore.

He further said that it is true that labourers from Vijayapura and Ballari districts have not turned up and as such the sugarcane cutting operations have taken a severe hit.