PONDA: The officials of government-run Sanjeevani Sugar Factory are in New Delhi to submit the compliance report to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) with a request to revoke the closure notice to begin the crushing season.

The crushing season was delayed by almost due to the failure of the authorities in completing the maintenance work and installation of the pollution control monitoring system. This led to protest by farmers.

Now, that the maintenance work as well and installation of the pollution control monitoring system have been completed, the officials as well as 1200 farmers are awaiting CPCB permission to begin the crushing season.

The farmers fear that if the crushing is delayed by few more days, the sugarcane harvested by them may dry up causing loss.

The government had earlier promised to start the crushing on December 5, then postponed it to December 8 and later to December 12 as the work on maintenance and installing pollution monitoring system was delayed. Now, once the CPCB gives its nod, the crushing might begin either on December 12 or 13.

It may be recalled that since the 46-year-old State funded factory had no pollution monitoring system in place for last several years, the CPCB had red-flagged the unit and asked it not to start the crushing without having the system in place.

Following this, the factory had sought relaxation in the condition as the unit goes to production hardly for two to three months in a year and hence has minimal pollution.

However, the CPCB did not agree as the sugar factories fall under red category and the continuous pollution monitoring system is mandatory to all the red category factories, sources said.

As a result, the factory finally engaged the unit - Nevco Engineering, New Delhi – to install the continuous pollution monitoring system. The company has completed installation of the system and a trial in presence of the GSPCB experts’ team was conducted on Sunday.

Hailed with the progress, Rajendra Dessai, president of the Sugarcane Farmers’ Association of Goa has said that finally the factory may go in operation by Wednesday or Thursday.

A stag monitoring system was is installed at the factory chimney to check the free particles emitting in the air and an Effluent Monitoring System was installed to check the residues like Suspended Solids, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in water effluent of the factory.

Sanjeevani Sugar Factory Administrator Damodar Morajkar, who is in Delhi, told Herald that the CPCB officials will hold meeting on Tuesday night and discuss on compliance report filed by Sanjeevani Officials with respect to Pollution Control monitoring system. He said that CPCB Officials are likely to revoke the closure notice order by December 12 afternoon and thus all hurdles will be cleared for commencing season. He said by December 12 evening, the Sanjeevani is likely to commence crushing season.