Delay in cane cutting: Vellore mill diverts load to Cheyyar facility

VELLORE: The Vellore Cooperative Sugar Mill stopped crushing quite some time ago after achieving 1.5 lakh tonnes. However, the mill was unable to help farmers, whose cane weighing around 3,000 tonnes, could not be cut due to farms being water logged, mill chairman M Anandan said.

While around 6,000 tonnes was thus affected, half of it was retrieved, dried and then diverted to Cheyyar Cooperative Sugar Mill, which started crushing nearly a month after the Vellore unit and still continues crushing having achieved 2.14 lakh tonnes, sources revealed.

“Though open cutting orders (by which farmers can cut cane on any date within the stipulated period) have been issued, farmers in the affected areas are unable to cut due to water logging,” Anandan said. As the Vellore mill had stopped crushing by then, we had to divert the retrieved 3,000 tonnes – which came in small batches of 300 to 400 tonnes – to the Cheyyar facility, he added.

As both the Vellore and Cheyyar units have crushing capacities of 2400 TCD (tonnes crushed daily) arrival of small loads could not be taken and neither the mill could be stopped for such loads as restarting the unit was a cumbersome process, sources revealed. The Cheyyar unit is crushing arrivals from around 8 other sugar mills all of which were forced to divert their small loads to this unit, officials added.

Asked whether the Cheyyar mill would pay Vellore farmers whose loads were diverted to that unit, Anandan said, “Payment would be from the Vellore mill only once we receive load arrival details from Cheyyar.”

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