In 1973, when Shakil Ahmed gave his 10 acres of land for a proposed sugar mill, he had dreamt of a better life. It was here in Sultanpur that Sanjay Gandhi, a rising politician at that point, had planned the largest sugar mill in Uttar Pradesh.
Ahmed had heard about the origin of Maruti and had expected the mill to be a centre of industrial development like the Maruti factory. Incidentally, both the Maruti factory and the mill started business in 1983- three years after Sanjay's death. And their journey couldn’t have been more different.
In 1983, Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister