Expressing Telangana government’s commitment in reviving the Nizam Sugar Factories, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy urged the Cabinet Sub-Committee to submit a comprehensive report on the revival.
The Chief Minister, who held a meeting with the Sub Committee at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat, asked for suitable recommendations and suggestions to revive the sugar factories.
The committee discussed pending arrears and the financial difficulties faced by the closed Nizam Sugar Factories at Bodhan and Mutyampet. The CM also enquired about the requirements of sugarcane farmers and their problems comprehensively. He said another meeting would be held once the report is submitted.
The Sugar Factory Revival Committee Chairman and State Industries Minister D. Sridhar Babu and Ministers - Damodara Raja Narsimha, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy; MLC Jeevan Reddy; MLAs Sudarshan Reddy, Rohit Rao, Adluri Laxman Kumar; former MLA A. Chandrasekhar and officials participated in the meeting.
Poll promise
The reopening of Nizam Sugar Factories has been the poll promise of all the political parties including the Congress, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BRS had promised in 2014 itself to bring the factories into profits, but ended up closing them facing flak in the last few years.
In fact, BRS chief K. Chandrashekar Rao had promised to revive the factory, and the government in 2015 issued orders to adopt a cooperative model in the place of public-private partnership to run the factory, pushing the onus on the farmers.
KCR had made it clear that the factory could not be run by the government due to the losses and more over the production of sugarcane had gone down in Telangana.
The BRS had been facing flak from the BJP and the Congress over the issue and in fact it took a political turn too with the farmers also entering poll battles to highlight the issue.
The factory that was set up in Bodhan by the Nizam Government in 1938. In the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh, the then Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government sold 51% stake to a private company that named it Nizam Deccan Sugars Limited. The company was liquidated in 2017 with the management preferring liquidation unable to run it.
The BRS government made some efforts to run it in the cooperative sector asking the farmers to take over but they did not come forward leading to the government’s decision to shelve it. The Congress party before and during the State Assembly polls had promised that the factory would be revived.
