Telangana mills owe Rs 120 crore to sugarcane farmers, CIFA blames Centre
Blaming the Central govt, Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) president Somasekhar Rao says Centre is not increasing Minumum Support Price (MSP) of sugarcane
Published: 29th July 2019 06:34 AM | Last Updated: 29th July 2019 06:34 AM | A+A A-
HYDERABAD: The Telangana sugar mill owners owe Rs 120 crore in sugarcane arrears to farmers as of 2018-2019, informed the Central government. Hundreds of helpless sugarcane farmers blame the BJP-led NDA government’s policies for their agony.
The farmer bodies from the State claims that the cane farmers in the State are in a terrible condition for which the Central government is responsible.
In the information that was given in response to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ramvilas Paswan reasoned that the condition is such because of “depressed” sugar prices.
“Depressed sugar prices due to surplus sugar production in 2017-18 and 2018-19 adversely affected the liquidiy of the sugar mills resulting in accumulation of cane price arrears of the farmers,” Paswan said.
Speaking to the Express, K Somasekhar Rao, president of the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) Telangana said, “The BJP government is not increasing the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of sugarcane. While it should be Rs 3,750 per tonne, the MSP is still at Rs 2,500 per tonne. With inflation, the situation of the farmers in the State are very bad.”
Talking about the distressed farmers who have to being burdened by the loans, Somasekhar said that farmers are being forced to take loans from private lenders at a steep rate to tackle the financial crisis arising from the situation. “Recently, the Central government announced the MSP. It has not been increased even slightly. This is very bad,” he added.
Meanwhile, it's not just the sugarcane farmers from the State who are in a lurch but also those from other State including Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, and Uttarakhand. Among all, the worst hit are those in Uttar Pradesh.
Paswan, described the payment of cane price as “a continuous process” and said that that there has been a decrease in the cane dues of farmers in the past one year. “ln sugar seasons 2017-18 and 2018-19, cane price payable to sugarcane farmers on all India basis was Rs 85,179 crore and Rs 85,646 crore respectively.”
