Cane farmers still await dues

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 3

“We have heard umpteen promises, held plenty of meetings and scores of protests, but still are empty handed, awaiting our own money,” this is how cane growers express their misery.

Cane growers last year in December had held a massive protest and the protesting sugarcane farmers were left with no option but to leave their families and hold dharnas. After the government had promised to give their dues till January 15, the farmers had lifted the protest but the farmers are still awaiting their payments.

Some of the marginal farmers, who have not got their dues of the last season, while talking to The Tribune said they had suffered a lot and would now stop growing sugarcane in their fields in the future.

Gurmukh Singh, a farmer from Sahni village said he had taken loan up to Rs 34 lakh just to run his family and make both ends meet.

“A sugar mill owe Rs 2 lakh to me. You can well imagine the kind of situation we are going through,” Singh said.

He added that his two children were studying.

“If I would not submit the fees on time, the school authorities would not let my children sit in the school,” Singh said.

Another farmer from Lakhpur village Santokh Singh said he was a marginal farmer with less land and he had yet to get nearly Rs 5 lakh from the mills.

“I have a daughter who is currently pursuing a course in nursing. Her course requires a lot of money. My father is old and his health is not good. I have a lot of responsibility but in the absence of money, we do not know how to continue further in this situation,” he said.

Earlier, while protesting against the government, the farmers had said the government could not pay their dues and had failed to give dues for their sugarcane crops even after a lapse of over a year. It should not keep bragging about the crop diversification scheme in speeches and also it (government) must stop showing ‘fake sympathy’ towards them.

The farmers said the agrarian crisis was getting grimmer in the state. The issue was being deepened with every coming day.