Uttar Pradesh sugarcane societies have grown richer by almost Rs 335 crore, thanks to the 2011-12 crushing season, which is now in its fag end.
Cane societies are entitled to get three per cent commission from sugar mills calculated on the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) announced by the Centre.
Since, FRP for 2011-12 crushing season is Rs 145/quintal, the commission stands at Rs 4.35/quintal. So far, all the 125 sugar mills in UP had purchased over 76.76 million tonnes (mt) (767.6 million quintals) of cane.
The societies’ commission is in addition to farmers’ payment by the mills. There are 168 sugarcane societies in the state at present. Each society has between 10,000 to 40,000 cane farmers as members and each can have employee base ranging from 10 to 200. There are about 4.2 million cane farmers in UP.
“Twenty five per cent of the commission received by a society is spent on development activities, while the rest goes towards meeting administrative and salary expenses,” Basti-based Cooperative Cane Development Union, Vikramjot founder member Arvind Singh told Business Standard.
“Sadly, the government and mills now want to demolish the institution of cane societies, which work for the benefit of farmers. Except for the work of cane area survey, our activities are now being limited,” he claimed.
A farmers’ activist suggested that cane societies should now diverse their profile into other non-conventional areas, such as modernisation of farming, etc, lest they lose their significance.
“Since, the weighing mechanism is now computerised, while the farmers also get automatic alerts about various schedules such as payment etc, the scope of cane societies is quite limited. They need to diversify now if they want to survive,” he said on anonymity.
Meanwhile, UP is likely to end its crushing season with total sugar output of seven mt.
So far, mills had bought 76.76 mt of cane, of which 76.63 mt had been crushed producing 6.95 mt of the sweetener. The recovery percentage stands at 9.07 per cent compared to 9.14 per cent last year.
With a couple of state mills still functioning, UP will achieve seven mt of production, Kisan Jagriti Manch president Sudhir Panwar said.
The cane arrears on mills have touched Rs 3,445 crore. Against dues of Rs 17,980 crore, mills had paid Rs 13,717 crore to farmers, wherein private and cooperative mills had paid Rs 12,785 crore and Rs 932 crore respectively.
On November 8, 2011, UP had hiked cane sugarcane advised price (SAP) by almost 20 per cent. The price of early variety of cane was increased Rs 40/quintal to Rs 250/quintal, while that of common variety was hiked by Rs 35/quintal to Rs 240/quintal. SAP is the actual price paid by mills to farmers.
