Villages voted in right earnest

Surendra Gangan

Democracy matters more in rural Maharashtra. If Mumbai, its suburbs and Thane are excluded, the voting percentage in the rest of the state works out to a healthy 64.40. In fact, the gap between rural and urban turnout in these assembly polls is over 15%.
While the average turnout in the Mumbai city is 45.19%, only 49.94% Thane voters cast their votes. Pune and Nagpur fare a tad better with 54.81% and 56.43% respectively.
The reluctance of the urban voter to participate in the democratic process is being chiefly attributed to their apathy towards politics, a large presence of migrants who do not have franchise or interest, and the errors in the electoral rolls.
An official in the election branch admitted that the electoral rolls have not been revised after 1995. “Though numerous enrollment drives have been undertaken, correction in the rolls has always been overlooked. A lot of names of dead people still exist on the lists as neither the heirs have taken pains to delete them, nor does the machinery have the capacity to check their presence. Also, a large number of urban voters keep changing addresses, and are registered in two or more constituencies. This brings the percentage down,” he said.
Senior journalist Pratap Asbe said that these factors affect the overall turnout by nearly 5%. SM Gothoskar, an expert in political statistics, said: “The well-off families are indifferent to politics and do not come in direct contact with the representatives who can convince them to vote. The rapport between the political workers and the voters is better in the rural areas.”
Some Muslims areas in the state have registered a low turnout—including Bhiwandi, Miraj, Nagpur and Mira- Bhayander. Community leaders say this is due to inadequate representation of the community, failure of the government on minority issues and lack of options.

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Private operators edging out sugar cooperatives

Mahesh Vijapurkar

Ryots for selling to buyers of their choice

MUMBAI: A time was when closed or poorly-run private sugar factories were bought over and turned into cooperatives by enterprising leaders in Maharashtra. Now, the private sector is creeping back into this politically sensitive domain by leasing sick co-operatives, and adding capacity.
Of the six factories, three were leased to two private sector sugar makers. A sugar boilermaker, an urban credit society and a sugar cooperative took one each. Sources say that even the Sangli cooperative, the largest in Maharashtra with a capacity of 8,500 tonnes a day, is also likely to seek bids. Other cooperatives are also queuing up to make similar deals.
An official says, "In the long term, we may see a mix of good cooperatives and private entities leasing more sugar mills but if private operators grab a large share, it could spell the death-knell of the cooperative movement." He sees a "disconnect" emerging between farmer-members of cooperatives and factory managements because of the entry of private operators, a situation, he says, could be "disastrous."
Farmers growing sugarcane close to the leased plants want the freedom to sell to buyers of their choice, not just to the cooperatives of which they are members. With sugarcane continuing to be in short supply, access to the crop is critical to the lessee.
Depending on their size — varying between 1,250 and 5,000 tonnes of crushing capacity a day — the annual rents range from Rs. 20 lakhs to Rs. 5.5 crores. The leases are for between two to five years, the lessees saving on capital cost with no gestation period. "For the lessees, it is a sound economic model," says S. M. Gothoskar, former business economist of the Cooperative Sugar Federation here.
Cooperative route
When Maharashtra embarked on stimulating its rural economy it opted for the cooperative route. It gave jobs to locals, and fair prices to the farmer. It also provided political platforms for promoters. However, when the sector was de-licensed, farmers got together and set up 14 sugar factories as joint stock companies.
Sugar units dot the State's ruralscape, with their total membership being in excess of 43-lakh farmers. Some 200 cooperatives are registered, of which 13 were liquidated recently, 22 had their licences cancelled and nine are under erection.
Some sick units are virtually defunct. Last year, only 100 units worked; the reasons for the drop in production were many, including shortage of sugarcane.
With sickness in the sector growing despite incentives from the Government, Maharashtra see private operators taking over cooperatives beset with poor management, where politics and nepotism played more important roles than did economics.
In 1981, there were just 21 sick factories; this year, of the 140-odd that can manage to operate, 75 are sick.

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Sugar and spite

Powerful cooperatives are under pressure from a ruling alliance that is looking at ways to combat their political patrons, the Congress.
In a significant judgement passed two weeks ago, the Mumbai High Court ordered the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra to release its portion of the share capital of the sugar cooperative, Bhimashankar Sahakar Sakhar Karkhana, promoted by Congress MLA Dilip Valse-Patil, by December 31. A fortnight earlier, another Congress MLA, Patangrao Kadam, promoter of the Sangli-based Sonhira Sakhar Karkhana, won a similar judgement.
For political observers in Maharashtra, the implications of these developments are not hard to gauge. The political battle between the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP combine and the Congress has spilled onto the sugarcane fields — though that is not new either. This time, though, the ruling alliance is in a piquant situation; it has to finance sugar cooperatives that back their opponents.
Maharashtras 107 sugar cooperatives — there are 110 sugar factories in the state — contribute over 30 per cent of the countrys sugar production. They have been a powerful vote bank for the Congress as well as an important source of funds. Theyve also thrown up leaders for the party — there are 15-odd MLAs and around five MPs who are sugar barons. Naturally, the cooperatives received several concessions from the former Congress governments. Sugar analyst and consultant, S M Gothoskar points out, The sugar cooperatives used to get unreasonable concessions. Because this government has stopped these concessions, they believe it is harassing them.
The political tussle is evident from the recent court cases. A sugar cooperative has a debt-equity ratio of 60:40. On the equity side, the government gives share capital to a sugar unit in the proportion of 3:1. Both petitioners had argued that the state government had favoured four of the 17 new sugar cooperative licence-holders in the state because they were Shiv Sena-BJP sympathisers.
Of the budgetary provision of Rs 100 crore that the state made towards share capital for new licences, the government granted Rs 20 crore to the four cooperatives. The promoters of these units include former minister of state in the alliance government, Ashokrao Patil-Dongaonkar, and the late MLA, Sampatrao Deshmukh.
It was also argued that the government had planned to divert the funds to six more units that had been given licences by the 12-day BJP government. These include sugar factories promoted by deputy chief minister, Gopinath Munde and cooperation minister Jaiprakash Mundada.
Congressmen view the judgement as a vindication of their stand that the government is victimising sugar cooperatives to settle scores with the former ruling party. They have also been discontented with certain amendments that the present government has made to the Cooperatives Act, under which it can supercede a cooperative board of directors if elections are not held on time (see box).
The present government has certainly been trying to infiltrate Congress bases. In some cases, cooperatives have been compelled to accept ruling party nominees on their boards to earn their share capital from the government. Says Shivajirao Patil, Congress MP and president of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, The government is insisting that some of the newly- formed cooperatives take people from the Shiv Sena and the BJP on their board. He gives the example of the Ranwad sugar factory in Nashik district, which was promoted by Congressmen who have now been forced to join the Shiv Sena.
These problems have come at a time when the sugar cooperatives in the state — as elsewhere in the country — are already under economic pressure. Sugar cooperatives are currently facing a crisis of plenty. Sugar production has peaked in the last two years. Last year, the country had a record sugar production of 146 lakh tonne It is estimated to be 165 lakh tonne for 1995-96 (the sugar season is from October to September).
Maharashtra produced roughly 52 lakh tonne this year — in fact, only 4 of 115 sugar-producing countries produce more than Maharashtra alone. As a result of the glut, not only are Maharashtras godowns full but some stocks are even lying in the open and cooperatives may have to construct more storage space this season. Says Shivajirao Patil, Last years stocks should have been finished by November-end but we were selling them till April 1996. And by April, 80 per cent of the new stock had also come in — so what do you do?
To cope with the crisis, the Maharashtra Rajya Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Sangh, or Sakhar Sangh, has requested the Maharashtra government to increase buffer stock from 5 lakh to 15 lakh tonnes. Control sugar, which is distributed by the government, keeps lying in our godowns and we have to bear the interest on it so we have asked the government to take it as buffer stock and release it as and when required, says Vijaysinh Shankarrao Mohite, Congress MLA and chairman of the Sakhar Sangh.
Sugar cooperatives have been under even more pressure because of recent changes in state government policies. For instance, because of the increased cane production this year, the crushing period was extended beyond April 15. According to Mohite sugar cooperatives used to get a transport subsidy and exemption from purchase tax for production after April 15. This was always done but this year, the government didnt do it. Rather, cooperatives were ordered to pay the purchase tax in one instalment instead of in two instalments - half at the start of the season and half at the end - as has been the norm for the past 30 years.
On each tonne of sugarcane crushed, the government levies a purchase tax of Rs 25. Each cooperative crushes an average 10 lakh tonnes a season, paying purchase tax of Rs 2.50 crore each year.
In a notification on June 14, however, the sales tax commissioner withdrew this facility. Sugar mills were warned that their accounts would be frozen unless the entire tax was paid in three days and, subsequently, accounts of about 85 .

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