PANAJI
After two failed attempts, Goa government is all set to re-float a fresh tender to rope in a private player to revive Sanjivani Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Limited (SSSK) at Dharbandora, which has been shut since 2019.
The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) cell is currently working on the tender to have an integrated sugar and distillery unit at the factory. The total cost of the project is around Rs 100 crore.
Previous attempts to revive the factory through private investors failed miserably. While in 2022, the two bidders, who opted for the Request for Qualification bid, failed to qualify, in 2024, not a single bidder showed interest.
Highly placed sources confirmed that after initially keeping the PPP proposal on hold for a year, due to no takers for RFQ, the government has now initiated a fresh process to draft a revised RFQ.
“The primary focus of the new tender will be to restart the factory as a Sugar factory only. The ethanol plant would be in a subsidiary form,” sources said.
As part of revival, the government intends to have a sugarcane crushing of over 700-800 tonnes of cane per day (TCD) capacity at SSSK along with an eco-friendly and zero-liquid discharge ethanol production plant of over 45 kilo litre per day (KLPD) capacity.
A 21-member Sugarcane Farmers Facilitation Committee in its report stressed on the revival of the factory apart from intensive extension of services to farmers for increasing their sugarcane production, adoption of suitable varieties of cane with high sugar content, etc.
The committee recommended production from sugar to ethanol and promoting nearby jaggery-making units to support farmers.
The ailing SSSK -- Goa’s lone sugar factory -- closure has significantly impacted more than 700 sugarcane farmers in the State, who for the past three to four years relied on the hope to see its revival, before a large number of them shifted to cultivation of other crops and are either no longer growing sugarcane or the production is much below what it was in the past.
From the production of a whopping 47,000 tonnes of sugarcane, it has now been limited to just 10,000 metric tonnes, which is being supplied to the mills in Karnataka and Maharashtra at zero profit.
The government last month notified to procure the sugarcane produced by the farmers at the Central government notified Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP). The scheme will be in place for a period of two years.
Under the scheme, sugarcane cultivated by Farmers/Cultivators will be supplied at Sanjivan Sugar Factory, and will be weighed there and provided/paid financial assistance as per Fair & Remunerative Price (FRP) fixed by the National Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories Ltd., New Delhi, from time to time.
The sugarcane will be procured by the government-appointed agency.
