Workers of National Co-operative Sugar Mills at Alanganallur unpaid for over 20 months

National Co-operative Sugar Mills in Madurai shut down in 2019, leaving 76 workers unemployed, awaiting promised reopening and pending salaries.

The six-decades-old National Co-operative Sugar Mills at Alanganallur near Madurai, which stopped its operation in 2019 owing to dwindling revenue during the COVID-19 period, has cost employment of 76 workers who are currently guarding the mill.

The employees who have not received their salary for more than two years are hopeful that the mill would be restarted and their salaries paid, but to no avail. 

Though Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in his election campaign promised that the mill would be reopened, no steps were taken, said the workers.

They said Agricultural Minister M.R.K. Panneerselvam assured both in Assembly and party meetings the mill would be reopened but had not spoken about it despite several representations.

The mill (137.68 acre), one of the oldest in the State, started in 1966 with a capacity to crush 1,000 tonnes of sugarcane per day, was upgraded at ₹ 2.50 crore in 1977 to increase the crushing capacity to 1,500 tonnes per day. Again in 1989, it was upgraded at a cost of ₹ 7 crore with a capacity of crushing 2,500 tonnes per day .  

From 2009 to 2019, the quantity of sugarcane crushed at the mill dwindled from 1.25 crore metric tonne to 60, 352 metric tonne, which was cited as the main reason for the shutdown of the mill in 2019, said sources.  

The main reason for the decline in processing sugarcane was fear among farmers to harvest sugarcane, fearing they could sell their produce during a precarious situation like Covid-19.