UP sugar mills keep cane farmers in good humour

In the backdrop of the scarcity of sugarcane this season, the sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh are keeping the farmers in good humour by collectively making advance payment of nearly Rs 770 crore.

According to official figures, against the cane dues of about Rs 1,650 crore so far, the sugar mills have paid almost Rs 2,420 crore to farmers. The private sugar mills lead the tally with total payments worth Rs 2,140 crore. Last year, the composite corresponding figure stood at Rs 1,333 crore.

Besides, due to the scarcity, the sugar mills have started paying handsomely to the farmers compared to the start of the crushing season. Now, some mills in the Meerut region are paying an incentive of almost Rs 60-65 per quintal over the State Advised Price (SAP) of Rs 165-170.

Earlier, the mills had announced to pay an incentive of Rs 45 per quintal on SAP, which had brought the effective cane price to Rs 210-215. Initially, the cane price farmers had demanded was Rs 280 per quintal, since retail sugar prices had doubled from last year, when the SAP stood at Rs 140-145.

Meanwhile, a total of about 120 sugar mills are crushing in UP. Some cooperative and sugar corporation mills have stopped functioning due to their obsolete machinery and technology, which is resulting in operating losses.

Till date, almost 17 million tonnes of cane have been crushed by the mills, producing roughly 1.5 million tonnes of sugar. The annual sugar consumption in UP alone stands at five million tonnes.

“The recovery this year is better by half percentage point at 8.68 per cent,” a sugar cane official informed.

Due to low sugarcane production, the mills are likely to function till the middle of February 2010 only, against March-April last crushing season.

This season, the cane production in UP dipped considerably to 98 million tonnes from 160 million tonnes in 2007-08. The cane acreage also declined from 2.8 million hectares in 2007-08 to 1.79 million hectares in the current crushing season.