Farmers lock horns over sugar price

Lucknow, October 10 The Uttar Pradesh government's efforts to evolve a consensus over the state advisory price (SAP) of sugarcane for the current cane crushing season have failed. While the farmers demanded that they will not accept less than Rs 160 per quintal, sugar industry representatives said they were not in a position to pay more then Rs 112 per quintal.
The state government had set up a committee to determine the SAP for the current cane-crushing season. The price is usually announced in the last week of October, ahead of Deepawali.

On Friday, the core committee, headed by Chief Secretary Atul Gupta, invited the representatives of both the parties to discuss the matter.

Cane Commissioner Har Sharan Das, who is a member of the committee, said the committee would soon finalise its recommendation and submit a report to the government.

In the season 2007-08, the state government had fixed the SAP at Rs 125 per quintal. Private mills had challenged the rate fixed by the government in the Allahabad High Court. Later, the Supreme Court, while upholding the state government’s right to determine the SAP, had fixed the interim price at Rs 110 per quintal.

The Uttar Pradesh Sugar Mills Association (UPSMA), a body of the private sugar mills, has consistently opposed the fixing of SAP by the government, holding it illegal and arbitrary. The body, however, favours the statutory minimum price (SMP), which is determined by the Centre. The SMP is always lower than the SAP; for the current season, the Centre has fixed the SMP at Rs 81.18 per quintal at 9 per cent recovery.Yogesh Dahiya of the Saharanpur District Cane Cooperative Union said the farmers of his district will not sell their produce to the mills at less then Rs 160 per quintal.

“The gur and khandsari units were already paying Rs 140 per quintal and the price of sugarcane in neighbouring Haryana and Punjab was Rs 160 per quintal. We are under no compulsion to sell sugarcane to the mills of UP,” he said.

According to the cane department, the area under cane cultivation in 2007-08 was 28.50 lakh hectares, which has been reduced to 21.40 lakh hectare in the current season. Sugarcane production is estimated to be 1,200 lakh metric tonne in 2008-09, as against 1,600 lakh metric tonne in 2007-08. Hence, the sugar production target has been reduced by the department to 70 lakh metric tonne, against 1crore metric tonne in 2006-07 and 74 lakh metric tonne in 2007-08.
source:expressindia