In mythology, the name ‘Sanjivani’ is associated with a life-saving herb which enables to achieve a state of immortality. In Goa, a defunct sugar factory bearing this name, has spelt doom for hundreds of workers and native sugarcane farmers, transporters and other dependents on this factory which is over five decades old. The majority of Goan farmers whose lives have been intertwined with this unit are from Sanguem while others are from Quepem, Dharbandora and Pernem. Government’s negligence and mismanagement has left several lives in utter disarray. Eighty percent of the sugar produced world-wide comes from sugarcane. The remaining comes from sugar beets. Brazil, India and China are the top three producers of sugarcane globally.
Under the visionary leadership of the first Chief Minister of Goa, the late Dayanand (Bhausaheb) Bandodkar, the Sanjivani Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana (Sugar Factory) at Dharbandora in South Goa was registered in 1971 as a Co-operative Society to improve the economic conditions of the sugarcane farmers. In the ‘90s, the factory and sugarcane cultivation in Goa was at its peak. After 25 years of successful operation, the government took over the factory in 1996 after it started incurring losses due to recurring break-downs of old machinery, non-availability of spare parts and shortage of sugarcane. There were too many odds, the biggest being the machinery which was several decades old.
In 2019 without any prior intimation, the government shut down the operations of the lone sugar factory turning it into a white elephant.
The sugarcane harvested in the state during this time was sent to the sugar factory in Belgaum. What a shame! Goa which was once bringing truck-loads of raw sugarcane from the neigbouring states, due to the high ‘sucrose-content’ is now forced to sell its sugarcane outside Goa to other sugar factories.
A year later, the government unilaterally transferred the Sanjivani Sugar Factory from the Registrar of Cooperative Societies Ministry of Cooperation, to the Agriculture Department. Till date, the government continues taking unilateral decisions without taking any of the farmers and the elected office bearers of the SSSKL into confidence. According to the bye-laws, the right to take decisions on behalf of the factory lies with the Cooperative Society. However, the Society was never taken into confidence. The Government undoubtedly has its eyes set on the large tracts of land that the cooperative owned.
Today, the Government strategy to usurp the Sanjivani land has been exposed. Over the years the government stealthily let the plant die and prodded the farmers to quit sugarcane cultivation so that they could appropriate the land that was exclusively meant for the use of the sugar cooperative and its objectives. Precious land that belongs to Sanjivani Sugar Cooperative has thus been grabbed with impunity. What kind of cooperative movement is this where the farmers are not taken into confidence at all?”
Was the transition from a cooperative society to the agriculture department done by following ‘due process of law’? Besides, how is this lush land which is ‘Agricultural’ in nature being given away and put to use for ‘non-agricultural’ purposes? Has there been any proper procedure followed for changing the land use? If not, the land should go back to the society and its members and government cannot become the owners of that. Was this a conspiracy and the losses a deliberate attempt for land grab? All these questions have remained unanswered. How much of the 15 lakh square meters of the land owned by SSSKL do they still have after the government’s free-flowing largesse of giving it away for non-agricultural purposes? In addition to the loot and the encroachment Sanjivani has been left with very little land for anything tangible.
In the last four years, Government gave away the land of the Sanjivani plant to private entities, including 35,000 sq mts of land to a college run by the trust of local MLA, Ganesh Gaonkar and large tracts of lands to private institutes, while quietly watching the number of sugarcane cultivators dwindle. It is important to note that in addition to the land taken by the government of Goa, huge chunks of land have been encroached on and two big stone quarries which have been operating for several years have illegally plundered the priceless natural resource of the laterite rock.
Rejecting the government’s proposal of retrenching workers of Sanjivani, the workers’ unions have demanded job security to both the 100 plus regular employees as well as the 80 contractual workers who have been on the payroll of the SSKL management for more than 16 years. On July 1, 2023, 80 workers who are undertaking perennial and essential jobs in the sugar factory and whose term of contract was renewed every year were shut-out and summarily refused employment.
This relentless battle of saving their jobs for themselves and in the interest of future generations finally bore fruit on the 12th of July when these workmen were asked to join duty. Meanwhile the administrator Satej Kamat of the SSSKL said that he has forwarded all the demands of the workmen to the parent body, namely the Agriculture Department, since the decision on such policy-matters are taken by them.
SSSKL had implemented the 3rd Maharashtra Sugar Wage Board to all the permanent workers in the year 2019. However the arrears of the past six years have not been paid to the workers effective from 2014 till the year 2019. Besides permanent workers who have completed 10 years in the service of (SSSKL) have not been upgraded to the next higher grade. The Administrator, Satej Kamat promised to meet the workers representatives along with their union leader in the next week when he would convey to them the department’s response to the pending grievances of the SSSKL workers. Meanwhile, the Factory Administrator Satej Kamat has asked the regular employees to produce their birth certificates in order to create documentation of the factory’s confirmed staff.
What has happened to the starting of an ‘Ethanol project’ at Sanjivani factory which promised to generate another 235 jobs? It is high time the government should think more seriously in the interest of our farmers especially those in the cultivation of sugarcane.
(The writer is a social scientist and a senior practicing criminal lawyer).