Sanjivani sugar factory’s long wait for a sweet deal

Far away from the hustle and bustle of life, sits Goa’s pioneering venture in sugar manufacturing — the Sanjivani Co-Operative Sugar Factory Ltd. Today, the factory may have gained a reputation as a white elephant bleeding the state exchequer, but a visit to it reveals a different narrative, one of factory personnel struggling to sustain its existence with love and passion in the face of continued government apathy and neglect.The phrase that comes to mind is ‘nobody’s child’.

393 ACRES OF SWEETNESS
The factory, which sprawls at the foothills of the evergreen Western Ghats on several hundred acres of golden farmlands at Dharbandora in Ponda taluka, can succinctly be described as ‘living history’. The premises bear an old-world charm with the office blocks very reminiscent of old British cantonments, a feeling that is only enhanced when one steps onto the cavernous mill house of simply ginormous proportions.
Commissioned in 1974, the machinery has lived way beyond its time. Karkhanas elsewhere, sources say, change equipment at regular intervals
“Everything you see here, dates back to 1974, the year the factory was established,” says assistant engineer Shahadev Gawas, who explains the working of the plant in painstaking detail.
And it’s true, his words, for there is an ancient feel in the dirt-encrusted floor, the huge lumbering machinery, rusty wrought iron steps and rickety wooden mezzanine. To take in the entire structure at once, one has to crane one’s neck as far back as possible, only to be rewarded with the sight of a corrugated roof that has a few missing sheets through which slats of sunlight pour in to complete the other-wordly setting.
CAUGHT IN A TIME WARP
But when Gawas gets talking about the machinery — also dating back to its year of origin — it is clear that there is technology at work here notwithstanding its datedness. Everything is automated, from the cane unloading bay where the sugar-making process initiates to the centrifugals where raw sugar crystals are finally separated from molasses.
The process seems extremely efficient too, for from what Gawas explains, every last bit of the sugarcane is used, byproducts and all. The bagasse is used as fuel to fire up the steam turbine (yes, the factory generates its own electricity) and the molasses is sold to Goa Dairy and other factories from outside the state, who use it to produce ethanol. Even the juice mud that is separated after filtration is not wasted and is converted into compost and sold to sugarcane farmers.
Apparently for all purposes functional in its archaic modernness, why then is the sugarcane factory failing, notching an average yearly loss of approximately Rs 3.5 crore of the last so many decades. There is no single answer, as we learn.
IGNORED SOLUTIONS, ABSENT POLITICAL WILL
For one, the machinery is outdated. “Even its spare parts have to be custom made now,” Gawas says, adding that maintenance eats a lot of revenue, to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore every year. In fact, a 2013 report submitted by the National Sugar Institute, Kanpur, for modernization cum expansion of the factory clearly states: “Plant is very old one. More expenditure is there on the existing boiler and turbine.” The study suggested installation of a new set of boiler and turbine to reduce maintenance expenditure, which would also help in more bagasse saving. Gawas estimates that upgradation could reduce maintenance costs by as much as 50%. A penny saved is, after all, a penny earned.
“The old machinery also breaks down during production. This reduces sugar recovery from the cane as cells dry up affecting overall production and revenue,” Gawas says, sharing how they lost four days last crushing season following a major breakdown. Furthermore, workers at the factory share that refiring the boilers costs at least Rs 56,000 every time, money which is hard to come by in the present situation.
For years, various political bosses have promised to infuse the factory with funds to revive it.
In 2013, then cooperation minister Pandurang Dhavalikar had approved Rs 5 crore for Sanjivani under ‘Rashtriya Krishi Yojana’, but only Rs 1.5 cr, as last reported, reached the factory and was spent on overhauling machinery and equipment. More recently, in 2017, former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar spoke about giving the factory a new lease of life by pumping Rs 30-35 crore for upgradations.
A lot of promises are yet to convert into reality for Sanjivani, even as those closely associated with its running put up proposal after proposal before the government to ensure its survival.
NOT SUCH A SWEET DEAL
Another problem area the Kanpur institute lists in its report is the low sugarcane production in the state: “Due to various reasons, cane cultivation is not very popular and sugarcane grown in the state does not have as much sugar content as there is in other parts of the tropical zone.
The land area available for cultivation is also less. People are mostly dependent on tourism. Being the only plant in the state of Goa, it could achieve good crushing for some decades. However, after the development of mining in the state, sugarcane area decreased drastically and they depended mostly on imported cane.”
Which brings to fore yet another reason why profit margins are in the red — more than 50% of the factory’s sugarcane requirement is met from farmers in the neighbouring state of Karnataka, which hikes costs. Import becomes necessary because the plant has a 1,250 tonnage capacity, meaning it needs as much as 1,250 tonnes of sugarcane per day to function.
Sources suggest that reducing the tonnage to about 600-900 by way of new machinery would save on expenses all around, making the factory more financially viable. But this would require at least a hundred crores, and where nothing has been done for the factory in its 46 years of existence hopes for such fund infusion seem, at best, bleak.
As of now this living giant of a machinery is gearing to hum to life for the new crushing season, ticking off one more chapter in its not-so-glorious history.