The Centre said on Wednesday that it had directed State governments to ensure that sugarcane farmers’ dues were cleared at the earliest. The States could take whatever measures they deemed fit to encourage mill owners to remunerate cane growers. The move comes in the backdrop of a spate of suicides and threat from farmers to stop growing cane.
Presenting the initiatives and achievements of the Ministry of Consumers Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the first 100 days, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said many meetings had been held with apex bodies of the sugar sector and representatives of major sugar-producing States.
About 45 per cent of outstanding dues had been cleared, and the Centre had expedited the process of facilitating payment of arrears and disbursal of interest-free loan to the sugar sector. As on September 4, 2014, Rs. 5,511 crore of the sanctioned Rs. 6,094 crore had been disbursed. Government incentive for the export of raw sugar had been revised to Rs. 3,371 per tonne for August-September from Rs 3,300 for June-July. Also, the import duty on raw sugar was increased from 15 per cent to 25 per cent. “As a result, sugarcane arrears came down to Rs. 7,760 crore from Rs. 14,095 crore as on May 31, 2014.”
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To check the prices of essential food items, potato and onions would be declared essential items under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the Minister said. States had been authorised to impose stock limits to check hoarding.
Mr. Paswan said the floods in Jammu and Kashmir had resulted in the loss of nearly 8,000 tonnes of food grain. But there was enough stock in the State to meet the demand for the next two months. There would be no shortage of food in the State.