Cane fumes
Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh (up), a major sugarcane production centre in the country, is in the grip of severe air pollution, caused by unlicensed sugarcane crushing units. Only nine of 21 mills with a license function leaving the field open to thousands of illicit units. There are almost 400 at Sukroli, a small village in the district's Kushinagar division.
Says Harinder Tripathi, a sugarcane farmer from Sukroli, "My co-agriculturists in the district prefer to supply sugarcane to these unlicensed crushing units. Actually, we have very little option. Most of the government-owned mills have closed down and the private units with a license are always on the look out to short change us.' Shambu Prasad, a leader of Kushinagar's farmers' union, elaborates: "Gorakhpur's farmers lost faith in these licensed private sugar mills in 1995. That year, the Sadder Nagar Sugar Mill in Kushinagar duped us of Rs 28 crores. We have not got our dues, even today.' R P N Singh, Kushinagar