Mysore/Mysuru: A day after the Government leased out the decades-old Pandavapura Sugar Factory, one of the oldest Sugar factories in the State to Bagalkot-based Nirani Sugars, Opposition leader and former Chief Minister Siddharamaiah has urged the Government not to privatise the prestigious State-run MySugar Factory at Mandya and to retain it under Government control.

In a letter written to Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Saturday, Siddharamaiah said that MySugar factory has 14,046 share-holders, most of whom are farmers. The Sugar Factory has a crushing capacity of 5,000 Metric Tonnes per day and has a co-generation power plant, ethanol and distillery units and also facilities for producing other by-products. 

Also, the State-run factory had in the past announced a good dividend of 20 to 30 percent to its shareholders for more than 18 years. Besides the factory is spread on a sprawling 207 acre area, thus making it one of the Sugar factories in the country having such a huge land space, he noted.

Pointing out that the Sugar Factory has a near century-old history, he said that the present dispensation must note that the Government had spent nearly Rs.230 crore to revive the struggling factory over the past five years between 2013 and 2018. As such the Government must drop any move to privatise this prestigious Factory, which currently values hundreds of crores of rupees and instead, must look at reviving the Factory by all possible means, in the better interests of farmers and the general public, the former CM maintained in his letter.