India’s first Sugar Museum to come up in Pune

India’s first Sugar Museum would come up in Pune, the cultural capital of Maharashtra. The museum would come up at ‘Sakhar Sankul’ at Shivajinagar area of Pune city.

The announcement came in the Maharashtra Budget 2021-22 tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who holds the Finance and Planning portfolios and is also the Guardian Minister of Pune district.

“The proposed Sugar Museum would be set up at a cost of Rs 40 crore,” Pawar said, adding that the museum would provide the progress made by the sugar industry in Maharashtra and the other sugar ancillary industries in the state. It will also showcase how sugar has transformed rural Maharashtra, he added.

Pune, the hub of Western Maharashtra, is known for sugar cultivation and sugar factories.

Sugar is the primary cash crop in Western Maharashtra – and the cooperative movement for the sugar industry started in the 1960s.

At present, there are 170-plus cooperative sugar factories in operation – and Maharashtra accounts for 20 per cent of sugar production in India.

There are around a dozen Sugar Museums in the world - Sugar Museum in Berlin, Germany, Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum in Puʻunene, Hawaii, Museum of Brown Sugar, a former museum in Recife, Brazil Sugar Museum in Nakskov, Denmark, Redpath Sugar Museum at Redpath Sugar Refinery in Toronto, Canada, Taiwan Sugar Museum in Kaohsiung, Sugar Museum in Tienen, Belgium, Australian Sugar Industry Museum in Mourilyan, Queensland, Barley Sugar Museum in Moret-sur-Loing, France.