Sugarcane crushing starts in Uttar Pradesh

Even as three sugar mills have started crushing in Uttar Pradesh, the industry is hopeful of an early resolution of the cane price issue, which threatens to further advance the already delayed crushing in the state.

“We are hoping the impasse will be broken in the next 2-3 days paving way for the full fledged crushing season,” UP Sugar Mills’ Association (UPSMA) president C B Patodia told Business Standard.

The stalemate is over cane price payable to farmers, with the mills ready to pay Rs 180 per quintal for common variety of sugarcane, including Rs 15 as incentive over the State Advised Price (SAP) of Rs 165 per quintal.

However, the farmers are adamant on Rs 280 per quintal, since the retail prices have more than doubled since last year.

Patodia maintained the sugar industry was not in a position to pay more than Rs 180 per quintal.

UP Cane Cooperative Societies’ Chairmen Union President Shrikant Singh charged the sugar industry with unnecessarily protracting the issue.

“The industry is not serious on a resolution of this burning issue, which will not only impact the sugar sector this year, but its cascading effect will lead to drastic shortfall in cane acreage next year,” he lamented.

The thee mills that started crushing include two private sugar mills in Kashi Ram Nagar and Badaun districts, and a cooperative unit in JP Nagar district.

“Smalltime cane farmers in dire need of money may have started to supply cane, but others will not supply their crop unless paid a fair price,” Singh added.

He said the input cost of cane crop alone came to around Rs 211 per quintal and the offer of Rs 180 per quintal was quite low. “Anything above Rs 250 could be acceptable to farmers if the sugar industry came across the table for talks,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (RKMS) president V M Singh claimed that in a meeting with cooperative mill chairmen, the farmers had decided to supply cane to mills at Rs 180 per quintal for the time being on the condition that any subsequent hike in price would also be remitted to them.

The Centre had earlier declared Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of Rs 130 per quintal for cane and asked the sugar mills to pay above this level to farmers.

There are 157 sugar mills in UP, of which 93 belong to the private sector. However, only about 132 are in working condition and had participated in the 2008-09 crushing.