In the decade of 1980s, most of the sugar mills became sick and many of them were taken over by the state government and put under the control of Bihar State Sugar Corporation. But even this effort failed to revive it. 

After coming to power in 2005 chief minister Nitish Kumar had planned to revive the industry with auction of many sick sugar mills. But the problem with it is that the focus was on producing ethanol, whose production was banned by the Central government. 

In spite of that the government's efforts started showing results. The sugarcane crushing capacity of the state's sugar mills increased from 32,000 tonnes crushed per day (TCD) in 2004-2005 to 55,000 TCD in 2012-13. 

For example, Narkatiaganj Sugar Mill in West Champaran district increased its capacity to 7,500 TCD from 5,000 TCD earlier, Harinagar sugar mill in the ssame district to 10,000 TCD from 8,500 TCD, Sidhwalia mill in Gopalganj district to 5,000 TCD from 3,500 TCD, Sasamusa mill in the same district to 3,500 TCD (2,450 TCD) and MP Chini Udyog in West Champaran district to 4,500 TCD from 3,500 TCD during the last one year.

Bihar has now nine privately-run sugar mills. Two sugar mills are being run in public sector by the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited at Lauria and Sugauli. The nine privately-run sugar mills under operation are located at Harinagar, Narkatiaganj, Majhaulia, Bagaha, Riga, Hasanpur, Gopalganj, Sidhwalia and Sasamusa. 

Three more sugar mills are under revival mode at Motipur, Lohat and Raiyyam after their auction. Motipur mill is being revived by the public sector company, Indian Potash Limited, while the Raiyyam and Lohat sugar mills are being revived under private sector. The sick sugar mills at Bihta, Sakri and Madhubani are making way for other industries. While Bihta mill is being developed as a logistic park, the one at Sakri is to be developed into a food park in private sector, the sugarcane official said.