Mayawati warns UP sugar mills

The Uttar Pradesh government today assumed a tough posturing against state sugar mills, who were yet to start crushing.

Chief Minister Mayawati has directed officials to take stern action against mills, who fail to start operations immediately.

There are about 130 functional sugar mills in UP, of which only handful have started crushing over the cane price issue.

This comes in wake of the UP sugar industry approaching the Allahabad High Court challenging the state advised price (SAP) for the 2010-11 crushing season.

On November 2, UP had announced a record rise of Rs 40/quintal in SAP to Rs 205-210/quintal for common and early varieties respectively.

 

However, the industry has expressed its inability to pay at this level due to lower realisation of sugar. The industry maintains that it could only pay at last year’s SAP level of around Rs 165/quintal.

The millers contended that the state government had no power to fix SAP after the fixation of a fair and remunerative price (FRP) by the Centre, which stands at Rs 139/quintal for this crushing season.

Mayawati said the millers had been asked to start crushing soon after SAP was announced. The district magistrates and divisional commissioners had been directed to ensure starting of operations in all the sugar mills.

The government claimed most units in western UP had issued indent for the purchase of cane for crushing and they would start operations in the next 2-3 days.

Four million UP cane farmers want their fields vacant for sowing rabi crop, once sugarcane is cut and supplied to mills for crushing.

Mayawati termed FRP as insufficient for sugarcane. She said the Centre had been urged several times to allow the state to put forth its view during fixation of FRP, but in vain.

Some farmers organisations are demanding that the cane price be hiked to Rs 300/quintal, since the input costs had gone up considerably.