Despite an assurance from the State Government that crushing season will start on time, deadlock persists over cane prices as mills have shown their inability to match last year’s price while farmers have asked the Government to increase the cane price.
Though the maintenance work of the 95 private mills has started but they are not ready to start crushing as desired by the Uttar Pradesh Government from mid-November till the dispute over the cane price is sorted out.
A meeting between Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan, farmers’ representatives and sugar millers to discuss the cane pricing mechanism remained inconclusive as the farmers representatives demanded a higher rates up to Rs350 per quintal while the private mills, represented by UP Sugar Mills Association (UPSMA), said that private millers would not be able to pay even the rate of Rs280 of the last year.
Earlier the State Government had asked the private mills to start their operations by November first week or face action. Now the State Government has gone soft on the sugar mills as the Chief Secretary said that the Government would ensure that sugar mill owners do not incur losses but at the same time exploitation of farmers would not be allowed, he said.
The Private mills are pressing the UP Government to adopt Centre’s Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of Rs220 per quintal fixed as the first installment while the rest may be decided as per the prices of the sugar.They are also demanding linkage of cane price with the sugar price as per the Ragarajan committee recommendation. UPSMA officials also pleaded before the government that banks have refused to give loan to meet out the capital cost.
But cane farmers representatives claimed that the cost of cane cultivation calculated by the Shahjahanpur-based UP council of sugarcane research is around Rs253 per quintal. There was an increase of only Rs 2 from last year when cost of cultivation was Rs 251 per quintal.