Karnataka Pranta Raitha Sangha and sugarcane growers would be filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court soon seeking judicial intervention to address the problems faced by the sugarcane farmers and demanding a scientific formula to fix the Fair Remunerative Price (FRP) for sugarcane.
President of the KPRS Maruti Manpade and senior advocate Sharanbasappa Nisty told presspersons in Kalaburagi city that the present FRP fixed by the Union government based on the Rangarajan Committee recommendations, was not fixed on scientific a formula and taking into account the cost of cultivation and other economic factors. Mr. Manpade said that the FRP of sugarcane should be fixed following the formula suggested in the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission and the recommendations of the Rangarajan Committee should be rejected. The government should also review its EXIM policy of sugar and said one of the reasons for the fall in the prices of the sugar in the local market this year was the import of 15 lakh tonnes of sugar despite the glut in the production of sugar in the country.
Besides banning the import of the sugar to arrest the fall in the prices, Mr. Manpade said that the government should revive the distribution of sugar at a subsidised rate in the Public Distribution System to both the BPL and APL card holders, to enable the sugar industry to find a local market to market their produce.
