Sugar industry is in crisis!
When it will be solved and how it can be done?
Yes, Indian sugar industry is in deep crisis.
There is an 80,000 crore industry, the very basis of Indian commercial agriculture base and it is an international level industry, perhaps, only next to Brazil.
Today, we see a sad story unfolding, everyone, from cane farmers to sugar mill owners who are all having no clue what befell them so suddenly.
There is a sugar mills’ consolidated debt of nearly Rs.65, 000 crores. Some mills have wiped out their equity.
They are almost as dead and dead assets stare at the owners.
The banks who have been their heavy lender don’t know how to recover their loan amounts.
Like other corporates, the sugar mills too now become wilful defaulters, declaring them so would only compound their difficulties. After the high profile debtors, after Kingfisher and Sahara, the lenders, as well as governments, why even the courts are unable to move further.
There is a dead silence on the front of corporate debt recovery!
Certainly, Mr.Modi, the high profile Pm himself has a real problem on his hand.
He can go to Bihar and announce a Rs.1.25 lakhs crore development package to the election-eve state.
It is always easy to make an announcement. This time too the Bihari voters might not be falling for the Modi bait. Why?
Mr.Modi has two rivals, one Mr.Nitish Kumar and another no less clever, Mr.Lalu Prasad Yadav who, one can expect match Mr.Modi, both in rhetoric as well as in trickery, if we can so put it.
Why?
Politicians hardly turn into statesmen, unless it is on rare and infrequent occasions. This time, it is a tough fight.
Economic development of Bihar even in the best of times is a tough call. It had been a backward state for various reasons.
One caste divisions. Another, unprincipled politicians.
So, it is time the people of Bihar, proud of their recent recovery would see and weight the options and choose their would be rulers wisely.
Sugar industry in the Northern belt, UP and elsewhere is also in heavy debts.So, Mr.Modi must unveil his economic package for the revival of the dormant sugar sector in a transparent manner.
Big announcements of economic packages need financial discipline.
Has the PM made his calculations, the required financial projections carefully this time?
Mr.Sinha, the minister of state for finance is from Bihar.
He is a well-educated and we imagine a very competent man too.
The point here is economic development, in the medium and long term is a serious business.
Ten years of Manmohan Singh government ended up in such fiasco.
So, Mr.Modi must tread carefully, be it Bihar or other states.