Ahead of the Assembly polls due early next year, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Punjab has initiated measures to win farmers over. But farmers’ unions keep accusing the government of adopting anti-farmer policies.
The Cabinet on Monday approved a proposal of the Agriculture Department to recover Rs. 223 crore from private sugar mills to pay up the dues to sugarcane growers. The Cabinet decided that the government pay the farmers Rs. 112 crore, till the dues were recovered.
The farmers, however, said they were being paid their dues after an inordinate delay.
“A farmer should get the payment for the produce within 10-15 days of sale ... What sugarcane growers are being paid now are the dues for last year’s crop ... They should also be paid interest for the delay,” Satnam Singh Behru, president of the Bhartiya Kisan Manch, told The Hindu .
For the past one year, farmers’ unions have been protesting against the alleged anti-farmer policies of the government and the non-payment of dues by the sugar mills.
Nirbhay Singh of the Kirti Kisan Union said the inordinate delay in payment forced farmers to borrow from institutional and private lenders, thus pushing them into a debt trap. “The private sugar mills should be penalised for late payment,” he said.
