KARACHI, Dec 8: Sugar mills in Sindh are going to restart their boilers from Friday, December 10 as they had suspended their crushing about a week back due to inadequate supply of sugarcane , which kept interrupting their operations with regular intervals.

According to a new schedule five sugar mills located in upper Sindh will resume sugarcane crushing from December 10 and the rest 23 mills located in lower Sindh will recommence crushing from December 15.

This was decided at a representative meeting of Sindh sugar mills held on Wednesday under the aegis of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Sindh zone). As a result of this decision all the 28 sugar mills in the province will back on the track within a week time.

The Sindh sugar mills suspended sugarcane crushing from mid-night of December 2-3 as they could not afford to consume costly furnace oil for such an uneconomic working.

Management of the mills reconsidered their suspension programme in light of the complaints received from sugarcane farmers, and in the best interest of all the stakeholders they decided to restart their boilers. It was also felt that since the start of new crushing season 2004-05 on November 15, sugarcane supplies have improved a lot.

The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Sindh zone) also drew the attention of the cane growers to the fact that for the next crushing season 2005-06, the inter-ministerial committee in its recent meetings held in Islamabad and participated by all the stakeholders at national level, with provincial representatives being present had in principle decided to increase minimum sugarcane price by 7.5 per cent to Rs44 per 40kgs in Siondh and Rs43 per 40kgs in the Punjab linking it with ex-mills minimum sugar price at Rs21 per kilo.

It is hoped that it will infuse encouragement in the sugarcane farmers to cultivate more and better quality cane. The mills assured growers of their full support towards betterment of economic well being of cane growers by increasing yield per acre and better price, the participants to the meeting observed.