Sugar mills have closed the crushing before the season due to lack of cane. Baba Baijunath Sugar and Chemical Industries of Katharia Municipality-9 closed the crossing from Tuesday due to lack of sugarcane in the season. Cane crushing can be done till mid-March.

Aiming to crush 20 to 25 lakh quintals in a season, the mill has crushed only 1.3 lakh quintals in this season. Baba Baijunath Babra, the owner of the mill, said that they have been facing shortage of sugarcane every year and this time they had to close the mill prematurely.

'Now is the time to produce sugar by crushing sugarcane, but the mill had to be closed a month ago,' he said, 'Even in the 7 years of operation of the mill, we have not been able to get sugarcane as per the target. The mill has to run at a loss every year.' 

sugarcane increases in February-Chait by sugarcane. Babra, the owner, said that he stopped getting sugarcane at this time. According to him, the mill, which started crushing in Pus, initially produced only 5 kg of sugar per quintal of sugarcane. "In February/Chait sugarcane is crushed and up to 8/10 kg of sugar is released. When sugar production increases, the mill has to be closed," he said.

Till three decades ago, 16 thousand farmers cultivated sugarcane in the district. At that time only Sriram Sugar Mill in Garuda Municipality was in operation. The mill, owned by the Golcha Group, was founded in 2049 and started crushing sugarcane in 2051. The mill used to crush up to 30 lakh quintals of sugarcane for the farmers of Bara, Parsa, Rautahat in a season. The management closed the mill from July 10, 2077 saying that there was a loss of crores. 

325 seasonal, regular and contractual employees and laborers lost their jobs when the sugar mill, which had been in continuous operation for 26 years, was closed. Then the farmers stopped planting sugarcane. Ashok Yadav, President of Rautahat Sugarcane Producers Association said that the number of farmers has decreased to around 8,000. "After the closure of the biggest mill in the district, the interest in sugarcane cultivation decreased," he said. Now hardly 8 thousand farmers have cultivated. This number is also decreasing.

President Yadav said that now only Baba Baijunath Mill is operating in the district and there is no sugarcane to reach that mill. Recently, even though Baba Baijnath Sugar Mill has been facilitating the processing and payment of sugarcane, the sugarcane farmers are not excited. The mill has purchased a cane harvester (a modern machine) with facilities from sugarcane cutting to transportation and handed it over to the farmers. However, the number of sugarcane farmers has not increased.

According to Babra, the owner has been providing payment within a week and 15 days after the sale of sugarcane, ease of challan and providing facilities to the farmers who plant sugarcane. The owner has been assisting in sowing, fertilizing and payment by reaching the farm. Baba Baijunath, who used to crush 20,000 quintals daily, was crushing less than 7/8 thousand due to sugarcane shortage. The mill came into operation from the second week of January.

 The mill also planned to import sugarcane from India. The strictness of the local administration could not bring sugarcane. The mill has become inadequate after the farmers of neighboring Bara and Sarlahi refused to give sugarcane. This time some farmers of Rautahat sold sugarcane to Sarlahi sugar mill. Manager Babra said that this added more problems.