Had you ever been to the Rural belt of Maharashtra, Western UP, and Tamilnadu. You will be amazed by seeing prosperous village in the interior and if you are a native of eastern India it will be a something that will certainly grab your attention. You will realize the strong rural economy of these prosperous State and the moment you start analyzing the reason behind it, you will find that the Sugarcane cultivation and Co-operative society has completely transferred the rural belt of these State.
उपजाऊ मिट्टी और भरपूर पानी होने के बाबजूद चीनी मिल को बदहाल कर दिया गया | कभी बिहार में देश का 70% चीनी का उत्पादन होता था और आज यह उद्योग दम तोर चूका है | वीरान पड़ी मिल की जमीन सारी कहानी कह देती है | गाँव गाँव में पलायन, गरीबी, कुपोषण ने जड़ जमा लिया और कभी बाढ़, कभी सुखाड़ किसानो की बची-खुची उम्मीदों पर पानी फेरती रहती है | आज हाल ये है कि बड़े, बड़े जमीन वाले किसान के बच्चे शहरो में मजदुरी करने को अभिसप्त हैं |
Half a decade before Bihar has the same story of prosperity when more than 25 sugar mills were functional in the Northern plain of Ganga River. The condition of farmers and laborers were good in Mithila. Sugarcane cultivation was the source of cash income for the farmers and act as a backbone for the rural economy. The rural people were very much dependent on the Sugar mills and this flow of cash helps them in the education of their children, the marriage of their daughter, health and other activities, but in last three decade time has changed a lot. The mills shutdown due mismanagement and in return millions of people were driven under acute poverty thus migration become the untold story of every house in the Mithila.
Whether sugar mills can produce ethanol from sugarcane or molasses has to be decided by the government (and permission has been refused for several mills in Bihar) and this is the main reason why the Sugar mills are not sustainable in the State like Bihar.
In the case of Maharashtra less than 3 percent of the state’s cropped area is under sugarcane but it uses more than 60 per cent of the irrigation water of the state. This is the biggest policy failure of our Agriculture sector and ironically sugar factories have gone sick in a state like Bihar which has ample water and it used to be the hub of sugarcane cultivation 50 years ago.
अब प्रशन ये उठता है कि आप इस बात को मान कैसे लेते हैं कि हम मिथिला के लोग गरीब हैं, जबकि पूरा मध्य भारत में पथरीली मिट्ठी सोना उपजा रही है और हमारे यहाँ उपजाऊ मिटटी, पानी और सस्ता मजदूर होने के बाबजूद दलिद्रता पसरी हुई है | इस बात को समझने की जरुरत है कि हमारी मिटटी भी सोना पैदा कर सकती है, हम किसान लोग अपने जमीन को छोर कर दिल्ली, पंजाब में मजदूरी के बदले अपने गाँव में भी सुख सुविधा के साथ रह सकते हैं बस मिथिला में चीनी मिल फिर से चालू हो जाये |
Bihar account for 2.2% of the total production of Sugarcane in the whole Country with minimum yield 42.6 MT/hectare of land which is among the lowest in the world and at the same time Tamil Nadu has the maximum yield in India, and is in fact higher than all the other major sugar geographies of India. The recovery rate of sugar from cane in Bihar is also the lowest in the Country.
ऊपर महाराष्ट्र के चीनी मिल और कोआपरेटिव क्रांति को देख कर एक आशा का संचार हुआ है | तो क्यों न हम एक बार फिर से बंद पड़ी चीनी मिल को चालू करवाने हेतु एक नए आन्दोलन की शुरुवात करें और मिथिला के विकास की कल्पना को साकार करें |
