Sugar industry is one of the most important industries and ranks second amongst major agro-based industries in India.  The agriculture sector has been slow to adopt the use of information technology (IT), despite its potential to improve efficiency of planning and decision making. However, several IT-based projects have been started at various agricultural institutions.

Way back in 1987, when I first visited a large sugar factory in Nasik, Maharashtra as a junior programmer ; I could see a row of bullock-carts and small trucks full of sugar-cane, parked along the road-side leading towards a sugar factory. The farmers used to cook their meals on the road-side, sleep in  vehicles and wait for their turn to sell their produce for days together.   The economic system for the farmers in those days, was to collect money on a small interest basis from the sugar factory, cultivate sugar-cane and sell it back to the factory.  When the farmers bring their produce to the factory, the money taken for the agriculture purpose is deducted from the amount taken as loan. 

It used to take 3 to 4 days to get their payment after weighting and deducting the money that the farmers has taken from the company as loan.

Agriculture throughout the world has undergone a large- scale revolution in  technology during recent years.  But when I look back, I am sure that the farmers got the maximum benefit, since they could sell their produce to the sugar factory and collect payment within few minutes, even during the peak harvesting period – The true Digital transformation.

The process involves weighing the lorry/truck/bullock-cart and then dumping the cane into a cleaning tank and then again weighing the vehicle and arriving at the actual weight of sugar-cane.  After computerization, this process used to take  5 to 7 minutes including the collection of payment and settling the load amount; which used to take approximately 30 to 45 minutes per sugar-cane carrying vehicles.  This drastically reduced the que-time and ease of delivering the sugar-cane and collecting money. Probably, the 1^st of its kind Digital transmutation for sugar-industry way back in 1987.

Hari Nair