Cane SAP to be hiked to Rs 390 per quintal in Punjab

Ruchika M Khanna

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Chandigarh, November 30

The Punjab Government will be increasing the State Agreed Price of sugarcane by Rs 10 per quintal, fixing it at Rs 390 per quintal. With this, Punjab will be the highest SAP paying state in the country.

The enhanced SAP of Rs 10 per quintal will be borne equally by the state government and the private sugar mills. The state government will have to set aside an additional Rs 100 crore for the enhanced SAP to be paid to growers.

Already, the state government is paying Rs 50 of the Rs 380 per quintal SAP for the cane bought and crushed by the private sugar mills in the 2022-23 crushing season.

Last year, the SAP was increased by Rs 30 per quintal by the AAP government. The private sugar mills, which crush 70 per cent of the cane, had expressed their inability to pay the increased SAP.

The decision to enhance the SAP has been taken at the highest level and it would be announced by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal at a rally in Gurdaspur on December 2.

Earlier, the protesting cane growers demanded Rs 450 per quintal, but they settled for Rs 400 per quintal at the time of calling off their protest.

Though the cane crushing season was to start on November 21, it got delayed as the SAP was not announced.

Sources said this delay had given time to sort out the issues raised by Sugarfed employees (working at cooperative sugar mills) , who were protesting against the government for not including them for receiving benefits of enhanced pay under the 6th Pay Commission.

Now, the cane crushing will commence from December 2. The state is expecting a sugarcane production of 677 lakh quintals this year.