Surat’s Mahuva Sugar Factory is likely to take over the Coper Co-operative Sugar Limited in Tapi, which was earlier saved from going into the hands of private players.
Chairman of Sumul Dairy and Mahuva Sugar Factory, Mansingh Patel, Tuesday called a meeting with 12 members of board of directors, including vice chairman Bhalwantrai Patel, and put forth a proposal to take over Coper Co-operative Sugar Ltd at Valod taluka in Tapi and return the invested money with interest to the four sugar cooperative mills of Surat district.
All the members of the board of directors agreed on the proposal and a resolution was passed.
Coper Co-operative was shut down after it was running in loss and faced liquidity problems due to mismanagement. In a bid to recover the loan amount from the factory, Gujarat State Cooperative Bank was about to sell it to private players. Sugar co-operative mills like Mahuva, Madhi, Chalthan Bardoli and Kamrej in Surat, had in a collective effort, managed funds and paid Rs 27 crore to the banks against the loan given to the Coper mill around 14 years ago. A board of members comprising the chairmen and vice chairmen of all five sugar cooperatives was formed to run the Coper mill. Sources said that around 3 lakh tonnes of sugarcane is crushed a year and the annual turnover is over Rs 200 crore.
Chairman of Sumul Dairy and Mahuva mill, Mansingh Patel, said, “I was the chairman of Gujarat State Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories when the Coper mill was shut down and private players were lobbying to get the mill, but we saved it from going into the hands of private players, for the betterment of farmers. The money invested by five sugar co-operatives at that time was Rs 5 crore (Chalthan Sugar), Rs 5 crore (Bardoli), Rs 4 crore (Madhi ), Rs 2.5 crore (Kamrej), and Rs 2.5 crore (Mahuva), and the remaining money was arranged from other sources.”
“We have saved the Coper mill and now it is running well. The four sugar co-operatives were worried about their invested money, so we planned to pay the invested money with interest to all four sugar cooperatives and take charge of Coper. First we will carry out meetings with the chairman and vice chairman of each of the four sugar co-operatives and convince them to take their part. For finance, we have planned to contact the National Cooperative Development Corporation of New Delhi, to get a loan at low interest rates,” he added.
Patel further said, “A couple of days ago, I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister & Cooperative Minister Amit Shah to save the sugar mills in the cooperative sector of Gujarat. Gujarat is well-known in the country for its cooperative sector, majorly sugar cooperatives. In Maharashtra, the sugar mills earlier run through cooperative societies majorly are now in the hands of private players. Similarly, in UP, 80 per cent companies running sugar mills are private players, and the remaining 20 per cent are run by collectors as administrators. We sought help from both top leaders to save the sugar mills of Gujarat from going into the hands of private players.”
