The Board of Directors of various Cooperative Sugar Mills in Haryana have proposed to give a bonus of Rs. 25 per quintal to farmers on the supply of sugarcane to the sugar mills over and above the cane price fixed by the State Government.
A spokesman of Haryana Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills Limited said on Wednesday that the Federation had also urged the sugar mills to give this bonus to the cane growers.
He said that the decision to propose bonus for cane growers had been taken in view of the large reduction of sugarcane crop in area under cooperative sugar mills during the last two consecutive seasons. The area under sugarcane in the year 2007-08 was 2.21 lakh acres which had gone down to 82,000 acres in 2009-10 showing a decline of 63 per cent. Due to this sharp decline, the possibility of getting the cane by sugar mills for crushing had also reduced to a large extent.
It may be recalled that the Haryana State Sugarcane Control Board, which met under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda here on Tuesday decided to give the country’s highest-ever price of sugarcane to the farmers of Haryana for the year 2009-10 which would be Rs.185 per quintal for early varieties, Rs.180 for mid varieties and Rs.175 per quintal for late maturing varieties. It was also decided that the cane price for the year 2010-11 would be Rs.210, Rs.205 and Rs.200 per quintal for early, mid and late varieties respectively.
