Bitter times for sweet all-women venture

STATE UPDATE - Maharashtra

It's perhaps the only co-operative sugar factory in the world that is owned and run by women.

The Indira Gandhi Bharatiya Mahila (IGBM) co-operative sugar factory in the Kolhapur district's Bhudargad taluka has over 5,000 women members (read: shareholders) and a 19-member all-women board.

Indeed, the Maharashtra state co-operative sugar factories union has recommended IGBM for inclusion in the Guiness Book of World Records.

The sugar mill is the outcome of the Maharashtra government's policy on women, announced in 1994. "The women's policy combined with the fact that 80 per cent of the farm work in the taluka is done by women, inspired the idea of the women's co-operative sugar factory," said Vijaymala Desai, chairperson of the mill.

Desai started the all-women venture for two reasons. First, women accounted for 80 per cent of the farm work in the region. Second, she managed to wrest from the government a concession.

For instance, each member of a sugar co-operative is supposed to own at least half an acre of land. But Desai argued that since only women were involved, this could be brought down to a quarter acre.

Desai has had to cross several hurdles. When she initially spoke of her plans to set up the women's sugar co-operative, several political bigwigs discouraged her.

"Some said that it will be impossible for women to manage a sugar unit, unlike a spinning mill. Sugar factories need co-ordinated efforts in terms of procuring the raw material (sugarcane) from the fields. Unlike spinning mills, the raw material cannot be stored, I was told."

Second, Desai and her husband, B G Desai, an MBA from Michigan University in the US and a former Maharashtra bureaucrat, had to first convince the men in and around Kolhapur to transfer some land holding to their wives.

"In Maharashtra's rural setting, women are not even trusted with a nominal sum of money for their personal use, let alone made owners of land. But my husband and I every day visited on an average 15-20 houses in each village, convincing the men that they should transfer at least one guntha (a quarter of an acre) to their wives," she says.

Third, the state government almost put IGBM out of business. In November 2002 when the factory was to begin operations, Rs 2.88 crore (part of the state government's equity component for the Rs 48 crore project) failed to arrive. Payments were delayed to the suppliers of machinery.

Fourth, when the 250,000 tonne a year sugarcane crushing factory started functioning on December 25, 2002, Desai and her colleagues were confronted with another problem ""their unit's sugarcane farmers were lured away by neighbouring sugar units, which offered higher prices.

"These sugar units last year offered Rs 750 a quintal to farmers, which is much higher than the minimum support price of Rs 560 announced by the state government. Failing to procure adequate sugarcane, we were also compelled to announce higher prices, although we could not afford to pay so much. It was pay more or perish," Desai said.

Even so, during the last crushing season IGBM crushed only 59,293 tonne of sugarcane "" a fifth of its capacity.

IGBM has not made profits so far, though it's been operational for two sugarcane crushing seasons, largely because it has not been able to obtain enough sugarcane and because it owes high-cost money to financial institutions like the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI).

"We raised a loan from IDBI at a whopping 17 per cent rate of interest. We are keen to renegotiate this loan and swap it with a low-interest loan which will make our business more viable. So far we have not succeeded in effecting the debt swap, but we are trying," Desai said.

Still, Desai's project has got going, which is more than what two other new sugar co-operative factory projects proposed at the same time in the Kolhapur belt have been able to do.

IGBM now intends to set up a working women's hostel for women who work in the factory (which at the moment is not 100 per cent manned by women) and workers who migrate to the region on the eve of the crushing season.

Yet the real test of whether this all-women mill will survive will surface in the next crushing season which starts on November 15.

This time around, the wiser all-women board intends to take the sugarcane price war to rival sugar co-operatives. The co-operative has already announced a cane price of Rs 800 per tonne for the coming crushing season, so matching the price that rival sugar co-operatives are offering.

IGBM also has to contend with an epidemic of 'lokri mawa,' an infestation that saps the sugarcane crop of its juices. The disease has wrecked havoc with the cane crop in most parts of Bhidargad taluka for the last two years.

Last but not least, this sugar mill has to look skywards and pray that the rain gods will be bountiful. Till then, it can only wait for sweet success.