UP to act tough against sugar mills

The Uttar Pradesh government will act tough against private sugar mills that have defaulted in payment to sugarcane farmers during the 2009-10 crushing season.

Although state sugar mills have made record payment of over Rs 12,000 crore to the cane farmers, about Rs 184 crore are still pending as dues on around 15 private millers.

In a recent review meeting here, Sugarcane Development and Sugar Industry Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui directed officials to issue separate Recovery Certificates (RCs) against mills with substantial dues.

The minister further asked the deputy cane commissioners to prepare the roadmap for the next crushing season beginning October 2010 in the backdrop of increase in cane acreage and resultant sugarcane production.

Over 75 sugar mills had made good progress regarding the launch of Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) for the cane growers and already collected the cell phone numbers of 625,000 farmers.

UP cane commissioner Kamran Rizvi said, by September 15, the IVRS would be ready in 46 mills, which would benefit over two million cane farmers.

The government is introducing a multi-pronged Information Technology-based system comprising IVRS, Short Messaging System (SMS) and Smart Weighment for transparent and speedy dissemination of information to an estimated 4.2 million cane farmers.

Under IVRS, farmers sitting at home would get information about acreage, procurement centres, basic quota, issue of coupons and cane price. Through SMS, the growers would get updates about payment. Smart Weighment system would provide information about gross and net weight.

Besides, the procurement centres are being computerised. So far, about 550 centres have been equipped with hand held computers (HHC), which would be ramped up to 1,400 by mid September.

There are 6,500 procurement centres in UP, which accounts for over half of India’s annual cane acreage and is the leading cane producer. It is the 2nd largest sugar producer after Maharashtra.

During 2010-11 season, the acreage in UP is likely to jump 20 per cent to 2.15 million hectares.