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Stream/Area:
-
Subject:
-
Paper ID:
IJSREM40443
Volume:
9 |
1 |
Jan 2025
Pages:
1-14
Publication Frequency:
Monthly (12 issues per year)
License:International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management follows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing free use and distribution with proper attribution.
Department of Sociology
Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune
The co-operative sugar industry in Maharashtra, once a cornerstone of rural economy and political power, has experienced deep crisis over the last two decades. An increasing number of co-operative mills have shut down or been sold to private entities. This phenomenon cannot be explained solely by economic variables such as declining cane yield or debt burden; rather, it reflects changing political incentives, elite capture, governance deficits, and institutional decay within the co-operative movement. This study examines the political economy underlying the closure and sale of co-operative sugar factories in Maharashtra. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach drawing on existing reports, statistical data, and narratives from farmers, workers, and local political actors it explores structural, socio-political, and economic factors that have accelerated the decline of co-operatives and spurred privatization. The analysis reveals how the interplay between political elite dominance, mismanagement, shifting market and policy contexts, and weakened farmer participation has transformed sugar factories from community assets into commercially traded commodities. The paper concludes with the social, economic, and political implications of this shift and offers recommendations for reviving farmer-centric governance and accountability mechanisms in the sugar sector.
KEYWORDS
The decline of Maharashtra’s co-operative sugar factories is not simply an outcome of agrarian distress or sugarcane production challenges. It is fundamentally a political-economic transformation whereby institutions originally built for collective empowerment have been hollowed out by elite capture, governance failure, and shifting incentives. The transition from co-operative to private ownership reflects changing power relations, weakened farmer agency, and commoditization of rural economic assets. While privatization may bring efficiency in some cases, the social costs loss of farmer control, worker insecurity, breakdown of community institutions are significant. For the co-operative dream to revive, structural reforms are needed: democratic governance, transparency, professional management, accountability, and policies that prioritize farmers' and workers’ rights over elite profits. Without such measures, privatization will continue to erode rural socio-economic stability, undermine collective agency, and widen inequality in Maharashtra’s sugar belt.
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Publication Date
6/13/2026
Peer Review Type
Double-Blind Peer Review
Review Rounds: 2
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