Even as the Yogi Adityanath government has set a record of sorts by ensuring payment of close to Rs 90,000 crore to farmers during the last 35 months, cane arrears of more than Rs 8,100 crore have piled up in the cane 2019-20 crushing season.
Sugarcane crushing is going on in full steam in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s top sugar producer.
So far, all the 119 operational sugar mills have procured cane worth about Rs 19,250 crore from the farmers, of which they have made payment of Rs 11,100 crore, thus leaving more than 42 per cent or Rs 8,150 crore as outstanding.
Together with the current and the previous years’ outstanding, the net arrears on the UP sugar mills is to the tune of almost Rs 8,600 crore.
Meanwhile, the UP mills have produced 76 lakh MT of sugar after crushing nearly seven crore MT of sugarcane in the current season even as the state is expected to notch up sugar output of nearly 1.2 crore MT this season, thus retaining its position as India’s top sugar producer.
Of the 119 mills, 92 belong to the private sector, 24 to the public sector and three to cooperative.
Last year, the Yogi Adityanath government had filed police cases against the mills owned by the Bajaj Hindustan, Modi and Wave Groups owing to their failure to settle dues of the 2018-19 season. The FIRs were lodged under Section 3/7 of the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) 1955 and sections 420 and 120 (B) Indian Penal Code (IPC). Besides, recovery certificates were issued against a few others.
Recently, the chief minister had said his government was integrating the state sugar sector with ethanol to create a profitable and sustainable value chain for the sugarcane farmers.
Speaking in the legislative assembly, Yogi had claimed that owing to the proactive steps taken by the government, UP had emerged as the country’s top ethanol producer with annual capacity of more than 1,126 million litres.
The state has liberalised the licensing of khandsari (unprocessed sugar) units and is also promoting setting up of gur (jaggery) plants in the rural areas to provide alternative source of revenue to farmers.