Cane crushing in Vellore co-op mill postponed to first week of January

The proposed start of annual crushing by the Vellore Cooperative Sugar Mill originally slated for December 23 has now been put off to the first week of January 2022 due to various reasons, officials said.

Mill chairman M Anandan told DT Next that “the main issue involved repairing of the turbine of the mill’s cogeneration plant at an estimated cost of Rs 2 crore. This was necessary to ensure round the clock functioning of the mill once crushing starts. Engineers from Bengaluru are expected to do the needful only after December 23 which pushed the crushing date further.”

Another reason according to Anandan was that “cane registered with the Vellore mill was still inundated. Though rain stopped in Vellore area nearly a month ago, fields were still water logged resulting in the mill’s cane on field and officials have to wait to issue cutting orders.”

However, the delayed start of crushing has its advantage of increasing the tonnage registered with the Vellore facility to 1.80 lakh tonnes, compared to the 1.15 lakh tonnes in November last. 

With diversion of cane anticipated from the Kallakurichi Sugar Mill and also from Tirupattur, the Vellore unit will in all probability crush more than 2 lakh tonnes before the crushing season ends after six months, officials said.

The increase in tonnage to the mill was said to be the result of awareness meetings with farmers in all the 8 cane divisions of the mill by officials. With the mill creating a record of its farmers not having any pending cane dues, there has been a clamour from other mill areas, specially, private ones, to attach and divert their cane loads to the Vellore unit.

Meanwhile, workers attached to the Ambur Cooperative Mill – Tamil Nadu’s oldest coop mill – are continuing their sit-in stir demanding that the mill start crushing on its own the 50,000 tonnes registered with it without diverting it elsewhere.