Panaji: Sugarcane farmers withdrew their indefinite strike on Tuesday after chief minister Pramod Sawant assured them to restart the Sanjivani sugar factory by March next year.
A delegation of farmers led by its president Rajendra Desai met Sawant at his official residence in Altinho.
Addressing reporters, Sawant said the government has invited a ‘request for qualification’ from eligible entities for redeveloping the factory, including ethanol production on public private partnership basis.
“We will finalise the contractor in the next three months, and the factory will be made functional by March (2025). We are ready to restart the factory, I don’t know who instigated the farmers to start an agitation against us…maybe it was done as elections are around the corner,” he said.
It is pertinent to note that four days after their indefinite sit-in protest outside Sanjivani sugar factory at Dharbandora, nearly 300 sugarcane farmers, including nearly 120 women, on Monday protested at Azad Maidan demanding clarity from the government on restarting the factory.
Government had shut down the factory in 2019-20 on grounds of recurring mechanical problems, non-availability of spare parts .