Thousands of sugarcane farmers in Odisha's Cuttack and Ganjam districts got a direct policy signal on Friday, 25 September 2026: the state government is putting real muscle behind reviving two long-dormant cooperative sugar mills — and is ready to pay farmers to grow more cane. The Chief Minister's Office of Odisha announced the launch of a dedicated new scheme aimed at expanding sugarcane cultivation and channelling incentives to growers in the catchment zones of the Badamba and Asika Cooperative Sugar Mills.

The post, shared in Odia on the official CMO handle, stated that under the leadership of Chief Minister Shri Mohan Charan Majhi, the 'people's government' is taking 'comprehensive steps to protect the interests of sugarcane farmers and increase their income.' The centrepiece is the newly launched scheme titled 'Samabaya Chini Shilpa Anchalare Akhu Utpadana Protsahana' — translated as 'Sugarcane Production Promotion in Cooperative Sugar Industry Areas' — designed to make both mills operational again while spurring area-wide cane expansion.

Two mills, two districts, one long-standing problem

The Badamba Cooperative Sugar Mill in Cuttack district and the Asika Cooperative Sugar Mill in Ganjam district represent a pattern familiar to Odisha's agricultural economy: cooperative agro-processing units that have struggled for decades against low cane supply, limited irrigation, and stiff competition from mills in neighbouring states. Odisha governments have periodically pushed for their revival since the early 2000s, but sustained reactivation has proved elusive.

The structural challenge is straightforward: mills cannot run without adequate cane supply, and farmers will not switch to cane without assured offtake and better returns. The new scheme attempts to break that loop by tying mill reactivation directly to farmer-facing production incentives within the mill's own catchment area — a supply-side push backed by state support.

What the scheme signals for rural Odisha

CM Majhi, who took office in June 2024 heading a BJP-led state government, has positioned rural income stabilisation as a priority. Odisha's agro-processing revival push — combining mill reactivation with cash-crop incentives — fits a broader state pattern of targeting regions with limited irrigation access, where cane's relative drought tolerance makes it a viable income diversifier for smallholders.

The two mill zones together cover a meaningful slice of Odisha's sugarcane belt. If the incentive architecture succeeds in nudging acreage upward before the next crushing season, it could generate visible results quickly — the kind of farm-income data a government would want heading into any electoral cycle. The real test, however, lies in the rollout: how the incentives are structured, how procurement is guaranteed, and whether the mills can sustain consistent operations once cane supply picks up.

Odisha's cooperative sugar sector has waited a long time for a scheme that addresses both the supply and the processing sides simultaneously. Whether this one delivers will show up in the cane acreage numbers when the next crushing season opens its books.