The crux of the sugarcane crisis in districts such as Belagavi and Bagalkot, which have a greater concentration of sugar factories, is the promise made by the factories to pay over and above the legally enforceable fair and remunerative price (FRP).
Farmers’ leaders accepted, in the meetingwith Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and State sugar commissionerate officials, that they were upset with the factories going back on their word to pay more than the FRP. The factories had promised this to ensure a critical mass of sugarcane supply before crushing began. However, once the supply was assured, the factories did not keep their promise.
The problem, however, is this was something of a “gentlemen’s agreement” at best and there is no law regulating such agreements, a senior officer of the sugar commissionerate, who participated in the Chief Minister’s meeting here on Tuesday, told The Hindu .
CM’s promise
The Chief Minister has now assured the farmers that the government would help them get “whatever price the factories had promised them”. Strictly speaking, neither the Karnataka Sugarcane (Regulation of Purchase and Supply) Act nor the Sugar Control Order enables the State government or the district administration to enforce any agreement for payment above the FRP. “But following the Chief Minister’s orders, we have asked the deputy commissioners in the affected districts to issue instructions to factories,” a senior officer said.
Similar opinion was expressed by Bagalkot Deputy Commissioner K.G. Shantaram.
“Prices higher than the FRP are part of the agreement between the factories and farmers. However, as per the CM’s orders, we are taking a stand in favour of farmers and instructing factories to pay the arrears as per their promise,” Mr. Shantaram said.
The FRP for the sugarcane crushed in the present season is ₹2,500 a tonne. This would be higher for factories with higher output and lesser for factories that produced less than one quintal of sugar for every tonne of sugarcane crushed.
Factories in the border districts sensed that they would face a scarcity of sugarcane and growers would sell their produce to Maharashtra, Goa, Telangana, and other States. So they promised farmers between ₹2,700 and ₹2,900 a tonne. This was paid to early harvesting growers for the first two weeks or so. But then, once crushing was set in order and factories had suagrcane-laden vehicles in front of their gates, they began paying only ₹2,500 a tonne. “This not only made farmers feel betrayed, but also led to heartburn among late harvesters,” commissionerate sources said.
‘Farmers being cheated’
Mahadev Madiwal, farmers’ leader from Athani in Belagavi, said factories were “cheating” farmers and the government.
“They don’t pay us our dues and lie to the government that they have no dues left to pay,” he said.
Farmers in Bagalkot said politicisation was the root cause of their troubles. “Since majority of the factories are controlled by MPs or MLAs, and since they are policymakers at the government level, they exert pressure on the government to see to it that they always keep a higher share of profit,” Vishwanath Udagatti, farmers’ leader told The Hindu .
He alleged that the factories always show deflated data on the recovery. He demanded online monitoring of recovery rates to bring in transparency.
While talks between the Chief Minister and factory owners are slated for Thursday, the general discontentment among farmers against sugar factories and the government continues in Belagavi and Bagalkot districts. Farmers continued their dharna outside the Belagavi Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday and vowed to continue it till the winter session of the legislature.
