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Government Decision All hopes of revival have ended for the closed sugar mills of Punjab. Badal led SAD-BJP alliance government has decided to sell the land of six closed sugar mills to the Punjab State Federation of Co-operative House Building Society for the construction of housing colonies instead of reviving these sick units. With it the dreams of thousands of employees and mill laborers of resumption of work have dashed. It must be learnt that former Co-operative minister late Captain Kanwaljeet Singh had dreamt of reviving the sick mills within the time frame of three months but his dreams too have been broken. Co-operative department has 15 sugar mills out of which, Faridkot, Jeera, Budhlada, Jagraon, Tarantaran and Rakhra based sugar mills have been closed for a long time because of government’s indifference. All the workers of these mills have been left jobless. Neither they have got their salaries for a long time nor have they been transferred to other governmental departments.

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Allotment of Land In its 2007’s assembly elections manifesto the SAD-BJP alliance had promised to restart these closes mills. Late Captain Kanwaljeet Singh had promised to take immediate steps for the revitalization of these ill-mills. To keep his promise he had planned to establish electricity production units in these sugar mills to solve the financial problems of these mills. More than fifteen private companies had showed their interests in this new planning. An electricity production unite has already been established in Faridkot based sugar mill that was established in 1991. This unite produces the electricity worth two crore seventy lakh annually. But this mill, too, has been closed because state government has shown the deficit of seventy seven crore in the time of ten years. In spite of the planning of restarting production from these sick unites the state government has allotted the land of these mills to Housefed to construct big residential colonies. Faridkot based mill has 133 acres of land out of which 65 acres have been allotted to Housefed to construct residential colonies. Except it large chunks of land of the remaining five sick sugar units have also been allotted to construct residential colonies.

Economy of Punjab Except it the financial condition of the remaining sugar mills of Ajnala, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawan Shahar), Batala, Morinda, Fazilka, Bhogpur, Kharar, Budhewal and Gurdaspur is also not satisfactory. Farmers have lost their interest in the production of the sugarcane because of transportation problems. On the other hand state government, too, is indifferent towards this small scale industry. Because of it most of the sugar mills could run only for 50-70 days during the peak season this year Sugar department MD Vinod Kumar said that large parts of these sugar mills have been sold for the construction of residential colonies but his department is very serious to revive and revitalize these closed sugar mills. Punjab government’s decision of selling the sugar mills’s land indicates that at one hand it is indifferent towards the economic interests of the farmers and on the other hand it is non-serious for the industrialization of the state.  Punjab is an agricultural state and most of its industry is agricultural based. It is a border state so private sector has not showed much interest in investing here. We must not forget the Nandigram like incidents. If in future some hopes of new industry rise then the land of these closed mills could be transferred for establishment of new industry. But SAD-BJP government’s decision indicates that they are not honest towards the people of Punjab.