Fuel, ethanol, distillery units to be installed in sugar mills

Industries Minister Dilip Barua has said the government has taken an initiative to install fuel, ethanol and distillery units in the sugar mills aiming at making the mills more need-oriented and effective.

He said the local demand of fuel, ethanol and distillery products could be fulfilled after enhancing the domestic production through best uses of molasses produced in the sugar mills.

He, however said, huge molasses, the major raw material of the items, is needed to operate the units. So, he said due emphasis should be given on enhancing sugarcane production so that the sugar mills could produce more molasses according to the demand of the planned units.

To make the attempt a success, he said the sugarcane farmers should put in their best efforts so that the sugarcane production could be enhanced upto the expected level.

The minister made these observations while exchanging views with the management of Rajshahi Sugar Mills (RSM) and the sugarcane farmers at the RSM conference hall here yesterday evening.

Mayor of Rajshahi City Corporation AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, Fazley Hossain Badsha MP, Shahrier Alam MP, Director (Production and Engineering) of Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation Abul Kashem and RSM Managing Director Habibur Rahman also addressed the function.

Dilip Barua said the present government will not privatize any more industry rather than it has been working relentlessly to reopen the closed ones.

"We have no alternative to take the industrialization process forward as the nation's economic position could not be bolstered depending on only agriculture," Dilip Barua said adding that the government is committed to build an industrially-enriched Bangladesh to bring economic emancipation.

He said the government has been giving highest priority towards value addition of all the potential agricultural products to encourage the farmers for enhancing their farming outputs.

He criticized the previous four-party alliance government's privatization policy and said the past government made scores of labourers and employees jobless by adopting the wrong policy.

He urged upon the mill management and the farmers to play a responsible role so that the sugar mill could be survived.

source: nation.ittefaq