As bumper sugarcane production in the State delays crushing of crop in sugar mills and unsettles farmers, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday announced ₹200 per tonne additional subsidy to the cane crushed post May 1.
“This will burden the State treasury by ₹100 crore. The State expects to crush 52 lakh tonne of cane post May 1, till the end of the season. In addition, post May 1, the cane that travelled more than 50 kilometres to reach sugar mills will be given ₹5 per tonne per kilometre subsidy for additional travel,” State cooperation minister Balasaheb Patil said. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray who headed the meeting said that the mills will keep running until all cane is crushed.
With bumper sugarcane crop in the year 2021-22, Maharashtra is staring at uncrushed cane to the tune of of 19.52 lakh tonne as the season of crushing is set to end for more than half of the sugar mills in the State, including both co-operative and private.
The State had an additional 2.25 lakh hectares of sugarcane area in year 2021-22 compared to 2020-21 with total sugarcane availability of 1,320 lakh tonne. In a presentation made in front of Mr. Thackeray, it was mentioned that the total turnover related to the sugar industry in the State has touched ₹1 lakh crore year 2021-22. In this, around ₹42,000 crore was spent on Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP). FRP is a price declared by the government, which the sugar mills are bound to pay farmers for sugarcane procurement. The presentation also informed that the turnover in the export of sugar from the State reached ₹3,500 crore in the year.
Last week, Namdev Jadhav, a sugarcane farmer from Maharashtra’s Beed district, burned his farm and committed suicide after his standing crop was not taken for crushing by the mill due to bumper production this year. Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar had then appealed to farmers not to take such drastic steps as the State government was working on finding the solution for the same.
