Farmers Movement Archive

Delayed payments pinch sugarcane farmers in UP

Meerut: Farmers in the western part of the state that houses a major chunk of UP’s sugar mills have begun to feel the heat as majority of the mills have defaulted on payments due to them. In Muzaffarnagar alone, mills owe Rs 428 crore to cane farmers. Mills in Bijnor owe Rs 532 crore while Shamli which has just three sugar mills and is incidentally home district of UP sugarcane development minister Suresh Rana has Rs 600 crore dues to be paid to farmers. In Saharanpur, mills owe Rs 482 crore to the farmers. The pending dues have also kicked up a political storm as the opposition is not leaving any stone unturned to capitalise on the farmers' resentment in the run-up to UP polls. Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), for instance, has raked up the issue of pending cane dues by protesting at the cane offices of various districts seeking immediate release of the farmers’ payment. Sunil Rohta, RLD’s state spokesperson, said, “The farmer is being battered from all sides. Pending dues, farm laws and rising power tariff – his woes are piling up. There has been no revision of State Advised Price (SAP) for cane for the last three years. And even now, when the crushing season is due to start in October, farmers are still waiting for their last years’ dues.” Farmers said they were financially crippled. Rajan Jawla, a Shamli-based farmer, said, “We give our cane to a local sugar mill, but we have not got our payment of around Rs 8 lakh. This has completely jeopardised our financial status. We are unable to pay our monthly instalments of loans and even school fees of our children.” Jaipal Singh, a farmer in Bijnor, said, “We have no other source of income. I gave my cane to a mill in Bilai in March and I am still waiting for my payment.” When contacted, UP cane commissioner Sanjay R Bhoosareddy said, “At present, the pending dues are close to Rs 5,500 crore. In terms of percentage, we have already paid 79% of the dues pan UP which is a history in itself. Never before have we achieved this figure and that too despite depressed sales performance by the mills owing to Covid pandemic when exports had almost stopped and institutional buying of sugar stocks witnessed considerable drop. We were able to sail through because of ethanol production and even now we are ensuring dispersal of dues on a daily basis.” On the high rate of pendency of dues even in his own home district Shamli, UP's cane minister Suresh Rana told TOI, "I am the cane minister of the entire state and not just Shamli where I belong. The same laws apply to all districts that are applicable in Shamli. I am fully committed to the welfare of farmers and we are inching towards fully paying the farmers what is due to them sooner than later. All defaulting mills have been issued directions to pay before the starting of the next crushing season. I think our farmers are in a much better position than what they were in previous regimes when backlogs on mills were huge and would run into years, crippling farmers in the process." On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sought a reply from the Centre and the state governments regarding the pending dues of sugarcane farmers. A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramanna issued a notice asking for a response from the sugarcane growing states and Centre and scheduled the matter for a hearing in the next three weeks.

The Times of India

2021-08-09

Meerut