Uttar Pradesh Sugarcane and Sugar Development Minister Suresh Rana has also written a letter to Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan, for hiking the floor ex-factory sugar price from Rs 2,900 per quintal to Rs 3,250 per quintal and increasing the monthly sugar sale quota of sugar mills in the state to 11 lakh metric tons.
Official sources said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was also likely to write a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office this week for expediting relief in this matter.
The sugarcane sector directly impacts 40 lakh farmers and generates direct economy worth almost Rs 50,000 crore through sugar, jaggery, ethanol, bagasse, and cogeneration of power.
Earlier, Sugarcane Commissioner Sanjay Bhoosreddy had written a similar letter to the Union Food Secretary in this regard.
In the letter to the Union minister, Rana said the issue needed immediate attention as it could aggravate the payment crisis in the current crushing season.
He pointed out that at present, the state mills’ had unsold inventory of 96,000 MT of 2017-18 season when UP had produced over 1.2 crore MT of sugar. He said during the current season, the UP mills were expected to produce 1.25 crore MT of sugar, of which the export quota was pegged at 1.75 lakh MT.
In this way, the availability of sugar with UP mills is estimated at 1.17 crore MT after adding fresh production (1.25 crore MT) and carryover stock (96,000 tonnes), while deducing the export quota (1.75 MT), he said, adding that UP would need monthly sugar sale quota of 11 lakh MT to clear the stocks and facilitate prompt payments to cane growers.