RAJSHAHI, Sept 30: Salaries of 721 officials, employees and workers of Rajshahi Sugar Mills (RSM) remained unpaid for last three-month as hundreds of tonnes sugar are kept unsold at the storehouses of mills.
According to sources, Rajshahi Sugar Mills has been incurring a huge loss every year from 1990. The production of sugar had also dropped in the mills during last one decade though during recent years, sugar production was increasing gradually. In 2019-20 fiscal year so far 8,500 tonnes of sugar were produced by crushing 1,29,251 tonnes of sugarcane. During the next fiscal year, the target of crushing 1,60,000 tonnes of sugar cane has been fixed.
It is learnt, the production cost of per kg of sugar at RSM is Tk 108 as against the government selling rate of sugar at Tk 60 per kg. Still, there was no sale of sugar in the local market because of fall of sugar price results a stock of 2,166 tonnes of unsold sugar at the mills storehouses for last four months.
The estimated price of the unsold sugar is Tk 130 million (13 crore). Due to so huge stockpile of sugar at the mills for months, the RSM authorities are facing an acute fund crunch and the salaries of 721 officials, employees and workers remained unpaid for last three months.
RSM sources further informed, Sugar Crop Research Institute in Ishwardi in Pabna used to supply best quality sugarcane seeds among sugar cane farmers. But, during the recent years, supply of such superior quality of sugarcane seeds remained suspended.
As a result, extraction of sugar from recently harvested sugar cane has been dropped to 6.21 per cent from the previous 8.0 per cent to 9.0 per cent.
Moreover, the demand for sugar has also been decreased in the local markets because of fixing of selling rate of sugar by the government is higher than that of the open market sale rate. The best quality sugar is available at Tk 57 per kg in the local markets whereas the government has fixed the price of sugar of RSM at Tk 60 per kg.
Rahidul Islam Kalu, joint general secretary of RSM Labourers, Employees Union informed, the state owned sugar mills of the country are incurring loss due to bureaucratic red-tapism.
He said sugar from the mills is not sold while the price of sugar remained higher in the market. At the same time, the large syndicates of traders used to import sugar from abroad at a low price. Those imported sugar are not hygienic and lower in quality than the sugar crushed in our mills. Moreover, the seed or variety of seed of sugar cane supplied to the farmers from Ishwardi Sugar Corp Research Insitute is also low in quality and extraction rate of sugar from the sugarcane grown from the seed is also very low.
He further mentioned, sugar produced at RSM is the best in quality in the country and the mills is third in position in case of extraction of sugar from the sugarcane among 16 mills of the country. Nearly 11,000 sugar cane farmers are directly and nearly 0.1 million people are indirectly involved with Rajshahi Sugar Mills, Sugar and sugar cane production.
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