Punjab Government on Friday raised the State advisory price (SAP) of sugarcane by Rs40 per quintal for the crushing season of 2013-14. The new SAP has now been fixed at Rs290 per quintal for advanced variety, Rs280 for medium and Rs275 for late variety.
A decision to this effect was taken in a meeting of Sugarcane Control Board chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday.
The SAP for 2012-13 cane crushing season are Rs250, Rs240 and Rs235 per quintal for advanced, medium and late varieties respectively.
The rate hike for cane comes after Punjab keeping its focus on enhancing more area under crops like sugarcane, cotton by reducing area under water-guzzling paddy crop.
Punjab this season has plans to bring 92,000 hectares of land under cane as compared to 83,000 hectares brought in last season.
On farmers’ demand, Chief Minister has asked the Financial Commissioner Development (FCD) to chalk out a plan to upgrade the Co-operative Sugar Mill Bhogpur by enhancing its crushing capacity. He also mentioned that the State Government would make budgetary provisions in future to overcome the situation arising out of gap payments. Badal further said that to facilitate farmers, primary agricultural societies (PASs) will provide sugarcane harvesting machinery to them at nominal rates for which the Government had already initiated a plan to provide all types of agricultural equipments.