A political battle on rates is slowly simmering in sugarcane heartland
The politics of sugarcane price fixation is slowly rearing up its ugly head as the key sugar producing states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh gear up for the production season in November. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the largest and secondlargest producers of sugar respectively, will begin their 2017-18 crushing season in November.
The industry has already witnessed one and a half years of tight supplies and high sugar prices. But with the central government already hiking the mandatory sugarcane price, it is unlikely that farmers can bargain for a higher price than this for this year’s produce.
Though the Centre has already announced a Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP), raising it by 10.6 per cent over previous year’s from 255 quintal to 230 quintal for 9.5 per cent sugar recovery, each state government can decide its own sugarcane price over and above FRP. Earlier, FRP was kept unchanged for two consecutive years. In Maharashtra, farmers’ organisation have been vocal for getting higher cane price.
The Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathana (SSS), which has often led violent agitations to get high cane price, will announce its de mand at its traditional Cane Conference to be held in Jaisinghpur in Kolhapur on Saturday. “We will surely ask for higher cane price than FRP,“ said Yogesh Pande, spokesperson, SSS.
The state is also gearing up to control any possible trouble by cane farmers. Maharashtra is looking to increase production from 42 lakh tonne last sugar year to about 74 lakh tonne in 2017-8. Next year’s production is likely to be even higher. In UP, mills are eagerly waiting for the Yogi Adityanath government’s State Advised Price (SAP), which is normally higher than FRP.
Source:The Economic Times;Published on 27/10/2017