Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday stopped by the venue of the protest against privatisation of Mysore Sugar Company Ltd. or Mysugar at Mandya near here and assured the activists that an appropriate decision with regard to the future of the company will be taken at a meeting convened in Bengaluru on October 18.
Mr. Bommai, who stopped by the statue of Sir M. Visvesvaraya in Mandya on his way to Mysuru to participate in the Vijayadashami celebrations, assured the protestors of “good news.” “I can’t make any announcement here when a meeting has been convened to discuss the issue”, he said when protestors asked him to give an assurance at the venue itself.
The protest by Raitha Hitarakshana Samithi, Mandya, against privatisation of Mysugar, the only government-run sugar factory in Karnataka, entered the 33rd day on Friday.
The meeting on October 18 will be attended by senior officials as well as Ministers and other people’s representatives, Mr. Bommai said.
Though the factory had been revived a couple of times and electricity co-generation unit too had been started, it has not been possible to run the mill properly, he regretted. Though several government-run factories have closed permanently, Mr. Bommai said he was against a similar fate befalling Mysugar.
“Once the factory resumes operations, it should not stop”, he said while assuring the protesters that all the necessary details with regard to machinery, maintenance, employees etc., will be discussed in detail and a suitable decision in line with the emotions of the people of the region will be taken.
He said he was aware that the people of Mandya, which is known as the land of sugar, wished that the sugarcane grown in the region is crushed in Mysugar factory. “Only then can we give respect to this land”, he said.
It may be mentioned here that the proposal to privatise the factory had been opposed not only by farmers’ activists, but also Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah, who recently sat alongside the protestors in Mandya and voiced his opposition to the move.
