Sugarcane Development Minister Suresh Rana said the state government would make an announcement on the hike in state advisory price (SAP) of sugarcane for the next cane crushing season starting from November.
The minister said that the issue was under the government’s active consideration while consultations with other stakeholders including the farmers were also underway.
Presently the cane SAP is Rs 325 per quintal for the early variety of sugarcane and Rs 315 for the unapproved variety.
“Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will announce the hike in SAP very soon," Rana told media persons in Lucknow on Friday.
He said that UP had become the numero uno in the sugarcane crushing across the country.
“Ethanol was not manufactured in Uttar Pradesh before 2017. But now, UP is number one in the production of ethanol in India. Also, UP is number one in sugarcane production and 35,000 people have been given employment in cane-related field,” the sugarcane minister said.
Rana further said that sugar mills closed during the previous Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party regimes had been revived by the Yogi government.
“Record crushing of sugarcane has been done in this season at 4,289 lakh metric tons. Earlier, area under sugarcane cultivation was 20 lakh hectares which has now increased to 28 lakh hectares, an increase of eight lakh hectares.
The sugarcane SAP has always been a politically sensitive issue in electoral politics of Uttar Pradesh. The SAP is determined more out of political compulsions rather than the logic of business and economics and overall financial health of the sugar industry.
In the final year of its tenure, the Yogi government has increased SAP only once in October 2017 for the 2017-18 cane crushing season by Rs 10 per quintal. However, for the last three years, the UP government has not hiked the SAP owing to a glut in sugar production coupled with a sharp fall in demand in 2020 due to pandemic.
With the farmers’ protest against three farm laws confined to western Uttar Pradesh and a mahapanchayat of farmers scheduled on September 5, the announcement on the hike in SAP is likely to cool the frayed tempers of the farming community.