of sugar was to be only Rs. 4.25. The same sugar was in fact sold by the factory at the rate of Rs. 10 per kilo! If the quality of sugarcane and the production process at the factory was improved, the cost of production would have come down even further. One can imagine how much profit the factories were making earlier when they paid just Rs. 145 a ton to the farmers. That additional profit of course fuelled the political ambitions of the leaders.
To evaluate the significance of sugarcane growers’ agitation one should also consider the role cooperative sugar factories played. The cooperative sugar factories at Pravaranagar and Malinagar were established a long time ago. Well-known economists like Dhananjayrao Gadgil and Vaikunthlal Mehta provided solid economic and philosophical basis to them. Cooperative movement in Maharashtra was appreciated throughout the country and even Prime Minister Nehru had admired it. After the State of Maharashtra was created in 1960, Congress leadership of the State discouraged private sugar factories resulting in most of them closing down and government lent its full support to the cooperative factories. Farmers had to raise barely 10 percent of the capital and the rest 90 percent government was ready to finance. Government also stood as guarantee so that Banks could give loans to these factories. Even if a particular factory still found itself in doldrums, the government was willing to lend a hand. Naturally there were soon two hundred cooperative sugar factories in the State. While the factories were cooperative in name, in reality the local politicians controlled them. Along with these cooperative sugar factories, milk societies, cotton yarn societies, cooperative banks, and even educational institutions emerged in a big way. The cooperative sugar factory became a major centre of development in the region and of course the power centre as 124
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
