RSML plans to cultivate sugarcane on 9,500 acres

GAIBANDHA, Sept 3 (BSS): Rangpur Sugar Mills Limited (RSML), a state- owned enterprise, has taken up a plan to bring at least 9,500 acres of land under sugarcane cultivation in its mill zone areas during the 2014-2015 plantation season.

According to sources, the mill, located in Mohimaganj area under Gobindaganj Upazila and the only heavy industry in the district, has become a non-profitable organisation due to many reasons.

Though the mill goes into sugar production every year, it is not operated as per the expected time for want of required quantity of sugarcane in the mill zone areas causing losses for years.

To run the mill properly and to turn it into a profitable entity, the authorities concerned took the plan to bring more land under sugarcane farming in the next season.

The officials of the mill have already started conducting different motivational and monitoring programmes among the farmers of the mill zones.

An initiative is there to disburse loan on easy terms among the farmers under loan investment programme to encourage them to plant sugarcane on their land.

General Manager (Agri) of the mill Abu Taher Bhuiyan said if 9,500 acres of land can be brought under the sugarcane cultivation, the mill would get about 1.20 lakh tonnes of canes for sugar production.

Then, it would be possible to operate the mill for minimum 2 and a half months smoothly, he added.

Managing Director of RSML Abdul Khalque said the officials and the employees of the mill were putting in their best efforts to expand the sugarcane farming in the mill zones.