After four years of closure, the interim government has moved to reopen Pabna Sugar Mills Limited. The Ministry of Industries made the announcement on 17 December 2024, raising hopes among cane growers and people of the region.

But seven months after the announcement that six closed sugar mills would reopen, no activity to restart Pabna Sugar Mill has been seen. Officials in charge of the mill say no further instructions have come since the suspension of cane crushing was withdrawn, so no work has begun. Of the six mills, Pabna Sugar Mill is due to reopen in the second phase; initial work to reopen Shyampur and Setabganj sugar mills has started in the first phase. When Pabna Sugar Mill might reopen will become clear in this year's cane-planting season in September-October. If instructions to plant cane come this season, the mill could reopen quickly.

The mill, including its cane-crushing plant, has machinery worth about Tk 80 crore. Unused for a long time, parts such as the crushing machinery's donga, knives, crusher, boiler house, rollers and dryers are being damaged.

Pabna Sugar Mill was set up on 60 acres at Dashuria in Ishwardi upazila on 27 December 1992. Built at a cost of Tk 125 crore, it was run on a trial basis in the 1997-98 crushing season and began commercial crushing the following year.

Unable to bear continuing losses, the Ministry of Industries declared the mill's production closed on 2 December 2020. Nearly four years after closure, the ministry decided to reopen it, but no one could say exactly when it might restart.

Meanwhile, valuable machinery and assets worth several crore taka are going to waste. With the mill closed, most farmers have turned away from sugarcane. Several thousand cane growers in the district and others linked to the mill have suffered economically, many people have lost work, and more than a hundred of the mill's vehicles lie idle along with its machinery.

On the ground, the mill's entrance road is full of potholes, and the large signboard beside it is so broken that it is impossible to tell it belongs to a sugar mill. Inside the gate, apart from security guards and a few employees including the MD who keep administrative work going, no one is to be seen. More than 200 cane-carrying trolleys lie in the open, covered in jungle and creepers. The crushing machinery, left for years, is rusting and close to ruin. The dilapidated state of the mill buildings and nearby shops makes it hard to believe a sugar mill was ever here. Once full of life, the mill is now silent and deserted.

The mill now has debts of about Tk 400 crore. It had around 1,200 permanent, temporary and seasonal workers and employees. Many now work at other running sugar mills, and some have moved into other occupations. Pabna sugar mill also had eight cane-production zones. After it closed, four were attached to the nearby Gopalpur sugar mill and the other four to Natore sugar mill, but cane production has now been suspended in all eight zones.

The mill currently has eight officers, 15 employees and 30 security guards, whose monthly salaries cost the government about Tk 14 lakh.

Amirul Islam, a cane grower from Dashuria Monsidpur, said: "We made our living by selling cane to this sugar mill. But when the mill suddenly closed, we suffered losses. Because it has been closed for so long, I now grow other crops instead of cane."

Shahjahan Ali Badsha, president of the Pabna Sugar Mills Cane Growers' Welfare Association and a national gold medal-winning farmer, said the closure had caused huge losses to cane growers. "Some 3,500 farmers grew cane under this mill. They are now forced to grow other crops. The Ministry of Industries has announced that Pabna Sugar Mill will open, but it is not known when. To open the mill, cane must first be grown in the mill zone, and the reopening should be announced after the cane is produced. Cane growers have not yet been told anything about growing cane."

Md Akhtaruzzaman, managing director of Pabna Sugar Mills Limited, said the Ministry of Industries withdrew the suspension of cane crushing on 17 December 2024, and no further instructions on reopening the mill have come since.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.