ABSTRACT
The northern states produce half the total sugarcane grown in India, and the sugar industry was first established on a large scale in this region. Hence the opportunities for cooperative sugar factories would seem to be favorable. However, the Baghpat cooperative sugar factory, described in this chapter, performs poorly. Its most serious problem is the lack of a steady and reliable supply of sugarcane throughout the crushing season.
In contrast with the co-ops in Maharashtra, Baghpat does not have a centrally-organized harvest and transport system for supplying itself with sugarcane. Cane supply is handled through a separate cooperative, the cane supply union, making coordinated management difficult (particularly since the union is riddled with corruption). Elected leaders of the cane supply union, like those of the factory, seem to have little interest in promoting efficiency.
There are at least two reasons for this lack of effective leadership. First, the real power to make decisions is in the hands of government officials, not elected leaders; and the factory’s top administrator has many other responsibilities as District Magistrate. Second, the large cane growers have interests which conflict with efficient factory management, since they often produce gur (crude sugar) in their own small-scale units. As a result, they sometimes obstruct the factory’s cane supply in order to supply their own gur units with more sugarcane. The absence of managerial authority for elected leaders, combined with their other interests, causes poor management.
