Meagre hike in sugarcane price by ASCIL

The Aska cooperative sugar industries limited (ACSIL) in Ganjam district has increased the sugarcane price by Rs 10 per tonne to Rs 2,280 this year. Besides, the authorities will provide transport subsidy to the sugarcane growers for carrying the crop to the factory from beyond 10-km distance.

ACSIL, the oldest sugar industry in cooperative sector in the state, had bought sugarcane at Rs 2,270 per tonne last year.

The farmers were demanding to raise the price to Rs 3,500 per tonne this year.

"Considering all aspects, including the financial condition of the factory, the authorities have decided to increase the sugarcane price by Rs 10 per tonne this time," said an officer of the factory.

The sugarcane growers, however, are dissatisfied with this meagre increase in the cane price. "Due to rising input costs, we wanted the sugarcane procurement price to be fixed at Rs 3,500 per tonne," said general secretary of Ganjam district sugarcane growers' association, Samira Pradhan. "We will talk to the factory authorities on their latest decision soon before chalking out our future action plan," he said.

He said, the sugarcane growers would not show interest to cultivate the crop if the sugar industry did not pay remunerative prices to them. The factory can run for more days and make profit if the acreage of sugarcane cultivation increased. The association also demanded insurance coverage for sugarcane crop taking panchayat as a unit.

The sugarcane area in the district has reduced drastically in last few years as the farmers no more think it to be remunerative, said Narayan Jena, vice president of the association. A decade ago, the area under sugarcane cultivation was around 12,000-acres. It reduced to around 8,400-acres last year, he claimed.

Meanwhile, the processing of the sugarcane at ASCIL is scheduled to start from Friday. "We will perform rituals to operate the machines on Thursday," said a factory official. The factory authorities target to crush around 1.40 lakh metric tonnes of sugarcane this year against the last year's achievement of 1.32 lakh metric tonnes.