The State Sugarcane Growers Association has decided to picket the Vikas Soudha building in Kalaburagi city where the cabinet would be holding its sitting on November 28 to protest against the inaction of the state government to force sugar factories to clear the dues amounting to Rs. 2,100 crore as per the decision of the Dharwad Bench of the Karnataka High Court.
Kalaburagi district President of the Association Jagadish Patil Rajapur told presspersons in Kalaburagi on Friday that it was unfortunate that the state government was not using its power to implement its own order of fixing State Administered Price (SAP) of Rs. 2,500 per tonne last year even after the High Court clearly stated that the state government had powers to fix the SAP for sugarcane.
He said that the Deputy Commissioner of Kalaburagi district Vipul Bansal had assured the sugarcane growers on November 11 during their picketing of his office on that day that he would convene a meeting of the representatives of the sugar factories and the sugarcane growers to ensure the implementation of the high court order on SAP for payment of the dues of the sugarcane growers. However, even after ten days the Deputy Commissioner had not convened the promised meeting of representatives of sugar factories and sugarcane growers.
“We have no other alternative but to renew our agitation and picket the Vikas Soudha to draw the attention of the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other Ministers of the seriousness of the issue and putting an end to the open violation of the directions of the government on the payment of prices of sugarcane according to the SAP fixed by the government”.
Mr. Rajapur said State President of the Association Kurubur Shantakumar would lead the picketing of the Vikas Soudha on November 28 by more than 10,000 sugarcane growers from the entire Hyderabad Karnataka region and few districts of Mumbai Karnataka region.
He said that out of the total Rs. 2,100 crore due from the sugar factories in the state, the sugar factories in Hyderabad Karnataka region had to pay more than Rs. 150 crore to the sugarcane growers as dues for the sugarcane supplied to them last year. Mr. Rajapur also demanded the government to direct the sugar factories to start the crushing operations immediately and fix the SAP at Rs. 3,000 per tonne for the current year.
