Crushing delayed, cane farmers take to streets

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 4

Thousands of sugarcane farmers across Doaba and Majha have taken to the streets, protesting against the state government’s “inability” to make seven private sugar mills start crushing sugarcane produced by them.

Even as parleys between the government and private sugar mill owners — which continued till late in the evening — remained inconclusive, farmers today sat on dharna on national and state highways at Phagwara, Dasuya and Mukerian. At some places, the police booked farmers for blocking national highways.

Farmer leader Jangveer Singh Chauhan, who is leading the dharna at Dasuya, told The Tribune that cane growers would not only continue the agitation but also extend it to Gurdaspur and Amritsar in case the private sugar mills refused to give them the SAP (state- advised price).

“There has been no increase in the SAP this year. Still, the private sugar mills are arm-twisting the government. The latter, instead of acting against the mills that have not even taken the licence to crush cane, are booking protesting farmers,” he said.

Top officials in the government, who held a marathon meeting with representatives of the Punjab Private Sugar Mills Association, told The Tribune that the mill owners had refused to pay the SAP and were insistent on paying only the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of Rs 275, Rs 265 and Rs 260 per quintal (for early, mid and late-yielding varieties).

The government has fixed the SAP at Rs 310, Rs 300 and Rs 295 per quintal – the same as last year’s prices. Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Vishwajit Khanna, when contacted, confirmed that the talks were inconclusive, but said the government would again do brainstorming on the issue.

Sources among the private sugar mill owners said it was economically unviable for them to run the mills at the SAP as the wholesale prices of sugar were sliding. “Our cost of production is much higher than the SAP, and we cannot bear the loss. We have even offered to buy the cane at the SAP, use our infrastructure for crushing the cane and sell the sugar. But we will not pay the higher SAP. Either the government pays the differential of Rs 35 per quintal (between SAP and FRP), or we do not crush cane this year,” said the owner of a sugar mill, requesting anonymity.

Official sources said the state government had initially offered a subsidy of Rs 10 per quintal to the mill owners and later increased the offer to Rs 15, but the mill owners did not relent.

The crushing of sugarcane should have started on November 15. But all private mills, owned by politicians across party lines, have refused to pay the SAP and crush any sugarcane till date. These private mills have 70 per cent of the cane crushing capacity in the state.

Revenue records show that area under sugarcane is 1,05,000 hectares this year, up by almost 9,000 hectares from last year. Sugarcane production is expected to cross last year’s figure of 842 lakh quintals.