Oppn demands more sugar concessions from govt

Wants earlier rule on mills having to share extra profit with cane growers restored.

After making the Centre backtrack on the state governments’ liabilities over the state advised price (SAP) of sugarcane, the Opposition today pressed the government to make further changes in the order notified on October 22, to ensure farmers continued to benefit if sugar mills registered “additional profits”. The October 22 order had done away with clause 5(A) of the Sugarcane (Control) Order, which requires the mills to share half their extra realisation at the end of the sugar year with the farmers.

“Since the fair and remunerative price (FRP, which the Centre had introduced as its newly termed minimum support rate) gives adequate consideration for margins on account of profit and risk to the farmers, Clause 5A of the SCO, which provided for sharing of additional profits by sugar mills, has been deleted,” the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution said in a statement dated November 6. The new FRP of Rs 129.84 a quitanl was brought in to replace the earlier statutory minimum price, which was Rs 107.76 a quintal.

In the breakfast meeting today, convened by parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, the BJP leadership and Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) said the amended SCO would take away the opportunity of the farmers to earn money. “The opposition parties have told us that they will support us only to offset the burden of Rs 14,000 crore (of past dues payable to farmers which the Supreme Court decided had to be paid by government and not the sugar mills) and want us not to meddle with other areas of the Order. We have to take a political call on this issue,” a senior UPA minister present in the meeting told Business Standard.

The government has decided to call another all-party meeting headed by Food Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday afternoon. The government may also ask Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati to attend and brief the parties about the various legal implications of the new ordinance and the bill to replace that ordinance.

The morning meeting was attended by the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses, Lal Krishna Advani and Arun Jaitley. According to insiders, the leaders told the government they would support the government to offset the Rs 14,000 crore burden but the Centre should not use this as a pretext to make any other changes.

Widespread agitation and political opposition against the new ordinance had already forced the Centre to “remove the misgivings” in the amended SCO and make it clear that the difference between FRP and state advised price (SAP) will have to be paid by the mills and not by the state governments.