The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet on Friday announced the state advised price (SAP) for sugarcane for the crushing season 2009-10 at Rs 165/quintal for the normal variety and Rs 170/quintal for the early variety. This is an increase of Rs 25 over that of last year when the normal variety was priced at Rs 140/quintal and the early variety was pegged at Rs 145/quintal.
The move is bound to set off a confrontation between the sugar millers and the farmers in the second largest sugar producing state in the country. For a while the SAP is more or less close to the expectation of the private millers, who had recommended that the hike be in the range of Rs 155-Rs 160, the farmers are unhappy as they have been demanding that the SAP be fixed at Rs 280-300/quintal so as to bring the price of finished sugar and cane on par. For the crushing season of 2008-09), the SAP for sugar cane was Rs 137.50/quintal, 140/quintal and Rs 145/quintal for poor, normal and early variety of cane respectively.
The decision on SAP was taken at the Cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Mayawati on Friday morning. Talking to FE, a spokesperson of ISMA said the association members are ?not unhappy? with the SAP announcement. ?This is okay. The factories will be able to bear this cane price and we believe that cane will also be available at this rate. The only thing that needs to be done now is to rope in the kolhus in the larger interest of the country. Almost 35-40% cane is consumed by these kolhus, who divert the gur to the illicit liquor industry. If this is restricted, UP can produce an additional 10 lakh tonnes of sugar,? he said.
?In all the cane reservation meetings in Lucknow, officials of the state department were apprised of the situation wherein the farmers would just about make a 10% profit if the SAP is fixed at Rs 280 per quintal. And the state government also gave repeated assurances that the interests of the farmers will not be overlooked,? said Arvind Kumar Singh, a progressive cane farmer from Basti, in eastern UP.
Joginder Singh, another cane farmer from Lakhimpur Kheri, said, ?In the long run, this will only alienate the farmers who will move away further from sowing cane and opt for the more remunerative wheat and paddy. He added that farmers will not hand over the cane at this rate to the millers.
VN Singh, a farmer leader who has been fighting the cause of better remuneration to cane farmers, said, ?We have a two options now. Either we take legal recourse against the SAP or we have the option of not sowing cane the next year. We are considering the option of going to court over the cane price.? He added that if the millers are asking for a ban on the kolhus, they should agree to pay a similar price and not pressurise the government to fix a price of Rs 165-170/quintal.
While most of the farmers agreed that it was too early to point out the future course of action, they were all united in saying that the reason that the state government and the private millers were able to pull the mug on them every year was that the farmers are not organised. ?The need of the hour is to unite the cane growers and that is exactly what we all have to do in order to face the millers,? said Singh.