THATTA, Nov 21: None of the four sugar mills in the district has started sugarcane crushing despite the lapse of the deadline set for them.

The Deewan Sugar Mill, Bhudo Talpur, having a crushing capacity of over 200,000 maunds in 24 hours, the Shah Murad Sugar Mill, Jhoke, the Laar Sugar Mill, Sujawal, and the Al-Asif Sugar Mill, Garho, could not start sugarcane crushing due to "no cane position" by Nov 20, the deadline set by the Sindh cane commissioner's office.

Some 30,000 to 50,000 maunds of sugarcane is required at the chained dumping section of a mill to keep it running for 24 hours. Despite apprehensions that late harvesting of sugarcane will affect Rabi crops, farmers seem to be reluctant to dispose of their sugarcane because they expect a rise in price.

The other reason for farmers' reluctance is that they have got a bumper paddy crop in Kharif. Farmers on average have got 20 maunds of paddy per acre. This is why they are busy in preparing their available lands for sunflower, wheat and cereal crops and not supplying their sugarcane produce to mills.

Badin: Sugar mills in the district continue to face a shortage of cane and, reportedly, sustaining losses to the tune of Rs200,000 to Rs300,000 per day. Mill managers told this correspondent on Saturday that a shortage of labour, which according to them was busy in harvesting paddy, was the main cause for non-supply of sugarcane.

They said there were reports of low cultivation of sugarcane crop in the district and illegal offer of transportation subsidy by some of the sugar mills in neighbouring districts.

A mill official said the sugar mills were dodging each other with the connivance of big landlords and offering subsidy and appropriate rates through middle men. He said that only those sugar mills were functioning properly which had started crushing on time.

Only three of the six sugar mills of the district --Ansari (Matli), Bawani (Talhar) and Deewan (Khoski) - are continuing crushing without break. Sohail Akbar of the Mirza Sugar mill said indents had been issued in a large number but they had received only 35 vehicles of sugarcane.

He said that mill capacity for crushing was 4,000 tons sugarcane per day. The manager of the Army Sugar Mill Badin, Yar Mohammad Talpur, said they were sustaining losses of Rs200,000 to Rs300,000 because of a short supply of cane.

He said the mill was hardly functioning two or three hours and it was closed as it received less quantity of cane against its requirement of 90,000 maunds per day. He said a huge quantity of furnace oil was required to ignite the boiler.

He said they were paying labour which was sitting idle. He said 35 per cent less sugarcane crop had been cultivated in comparison to the previous years. The general manager of the Pangrio Sugar Mill, Mr Farman Ali, said that they had not started the mill yet because of non-availability sugar cane.

Dadu: A large number of employees of the Dadu Sugar Mill held a demonstration outside the press club here on Sunday to protest against the continued closure of the mill.

They were led by Employees' Union leaders Allah Bachayo Panhwar, Munir Ahmad Memon, Noor Mohammad Soomro, Roshan Ali Korejo and Manzoor Ali Soomro. Talking to the protesters, they said the mill was closed since 1997.