Sugarcane farmers bring traffic to a halt in Bangalore

Farmers are demanding sugar factories to pay Rs 3,500 cr cane arrears

Traffic in the central parts of Bangalore city came to a grinding halt today as thousands of sugarcane farmers from across the state took out a protest rally demanding the payment of cane arrears from the sugar mills.

Office goers and general commuters that arrived at the City Railway station and bus stations had a harrowing time this morning as farmers sat on dharna on the road at Anand Rao circle before taking out protest march towards the residence of chief minister Siddaramaiah.

The farmers are demanding payment of Rs 2,500 per tonne from the sugar mills as fixed by the state government earlier this year.

“The government has fixed Rs 2,500 per tonne as cane prices for this year. In addition to this, the government as support price pays another Rs 150. But, mill owners are paying just Rs 2,000, which is below the fair and remunerative price (FRP) fixed by the Central government. Many sugar mills are controlled by several ministers and politicians and the government has yielded to their pressures. Hence, we are not getting the rightful prices for our cane,” said Kurubur Shanthkumar, President of Karnataka Sugarcane Growers’ Association.

Talking to reporters, he said farmers have grown their crop by raising debt from moneylenders and banks. They will all be in trouble if they don’t get their rightful prices. “All the mills put together have to pay Rs 3,500 crore. The government should intervene immediately and prevail upon the mill owners to pay Rs 2,650 per tonne including the support price (govt has promised to refund Rs 150 per tonne to mill owners). In fact, the mills should pay us 15 per cent interest for the amount they have kept pending,” he said.

If the mills fail to pay the arrears immediately, the farmers will intensify their fight for justice, he added.

Earlier, last month, the state government had warned of a legal action against the mills for failure to pay the cane arrears amounting to Rs 3,357 crore.

Sugar mills in Karnataka have expressed difficulty in payment of sugarcane price fixed by the Karnataka Sugarcane Control Board (KSCB) in view of the low sugar price realised by them during the present season 2013-14.

The mills have challenged the cane price of Rs 2,500 per quintal, 19 per cent above the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of Rs 2,100 per quintal for 9.5 per cent recovery, fixed by the KSCB.

According to the sugar mills, in the present price scenario it would not be possible for them to pay this price to farmers.

For the year 2013-14 (till end of April), sugar factories have achieved 16 per cent growth in cane crushing at 37.25 million tonnes with a recovery of 11.04 per cent.

The sugar production has gone up 23 per cent to 4.11 million tonnes. About 60 mills were operational with a combined capacity of 273,950 TCD (tonnes crushed per day) during this year as against 57 last year.