Bihar govt plans to re-open 15 closed sugar mills

Patna, Jun 12 (UNI) The Bihar government has decided to re-open all the fifteen closed sugar mills in the state before the next crushing season and hand them over to private parties for viable business.

Announcing the decision of the state cabinet, official sources here today said, however, in order to ensure a smooth transformation of ownership the SBI Capital Markets had been asekd to prepare separate feasibility reports for all the 15 closed mills to find out whether they would be financially viable after the reopening.

The reports, to be placed before the state cabinet next month, would highlight every aspect of the viability of each government sugar mill after inspecting their present conditions, the sources informed and made it clear that soon after their reopening all the mills would be handed over to willing private parties following mutual agreements.

Elaborating the rationale behind asking the SBI CAP to prepare the feasibilty reports, the sources said they had been selected not only because of their reputation for the job but also for having a clear view of the future viability of the closed units for long.

Incidentally, the 15 government run sugar mills at Motipur, Samastipur, Lohat, Lauriya, Banmankhi, Hatua, Sugauli, New Siwan, Warshaliganj, Guraru, Bihta, Skri, Vaishali and Baheri had remained closed for the past several years primarily because of the government failure to marketing their products and lack of modernisation jeopardising the future of more than 5,000 families.

The issue of reopening of the closed government sugar mills in Bihar had been causing concern to the state with none of the agro based agencies preparing to take over the huge financial burden on the issue.

UNI