Madhya Pradesh to offer sops to sugarcane growers

Due to the large supply of sugarcane and its crashing prices, the state government has decided to offer a transport subsidy at Rs 25 per quintal to sugarcane growers and asked sugar mills to extend crushing till May this year.

This will cost the state Rs 7 crore.

The department of power has been instructed to ensure power supply to sugarcane belts namely "" Morena, Khargone, Burhanpur, Guna, Barwani, Gwalior, Narsinghpur, Betul, Hoshangabad, Harda and Sagar. Normally sugar mills start during late November and shut by April each year.

This, according to government sources, has been decided for the first time since sugarcane acreage has gone up from 55,000 hectares in the previous year to 76,000 hectares this year.

"A meeting headed by the chief minister decided to offer transport subsidy at Rs 25 per quintal to growers since the surplus production of sugarcane is likely to touch 250,000 tonnes this year," said a government source adding, "The announcement has re-activated gur makers and the surplus stock, expected to be 175,000 tonnes, will be consumed during the season."

The sugarcane farmers of the state feed 11 sugar mills with an installed capacity of 22,000 metric tonnes per day.

"The Maharashtra government had imposed an undeclared ban on sugarcane import from Madhya Pradesh.

This triggered a panic among farmers who shifted to supply sugarcane to gur (jaggery) makers, as a result of which gur prices crashed to as low as Rs 700 per quintal. Now, the ban has been lifted and the state's sugarcane growers will be able to supply the yield to Maharashtra also or any district of the state," the source said.

Sugarcane area is reserved for eight mills, with the announcement of transport subsidy the reserved area farmers are now allowed to move their crop to any mill in or outside the state.

"The subsidy offer will put an additional burden of Rs 5-7 crore on state exchequer," the source said.

So far sugar mills in the state have crushed almost 1.5 million tonnes till 6 of this month and a stock of 1.195 million metric tonnes is yet to be crushed against the total production of 2.9 million tonnes. Of the 11 sugar mills, eight have reserved sugarcane area. Sugarcane prices are hovering around Rs 105-120 per quintal.