Goa: Wait till August 7 for payment, agitating cane farmers told

PONDA: Irked over the government’s delay in releasing their payments, sugarcane farmers staged a sit-in agitation in front of Sanjivani sugar factory at Dharbandora on Wednesday. However, they soon suspended the protest following agriculture minister Chandrakant Kavalekar’s assurance to look into their demands.
The farmers said the minister has assured to take them to chief minister Pramod Sawant on Friday.
“We have only suspended the agitation and not cancelled it. If the payment is delayed further, we will have to continue with our protest,” said Harshad Prabhudesai, vice-president of the Goa Sugarcane Farmers' Association.
Stating that their demand is genuine, cooperation minister Govind Gaude said that only support price for the canes and harvesting charges are pending, and assured that the farmers would receive the payment by August 7.
While the factory pays Rs 1,200, the agriculture department provides an additional Rs 1,800 as support price, totaling to Rs 3,000 per tonne of the canes supplied by the farmers to the factory. In addition to this, Rs 600 per tonne, including Rs 300 each by the factory and agriculture department, is paid to the farmers.
The farmers have supplied a total 26,440 tonne canes to the factory which have been sent to sugar factories in Karnataka and Maharashtra. The farmers have supplied the canes till the imposition of lockdown in March, and since then the government is dilly-dallying over the payments, said a farmer. Gaude said that he met the chief minister after the farmers’ agitation on Wednesday, to which Sawant assured to make payments by August 7.