Sugarcane growers who supplied their produce to two private sugar mills in Thanjavur district are yet to receive the arrears despite the lapse of the grace period granted to the mills.
The private mills must be made to pay the arrears immediately as the growers were facing financial woes and pressure from banks, farmers complained at the grievances day meeting here on Friday.
Raising the issue, Thanjavur District Cauvery Farmers’ Protection Association secretary Swamimalai S. Vimalnathan pointed said the Thiru Aarooran Sugar Mills, Thirumandangudi, and Sri Ambika Sugar Mills, Thugili, had ran up arrears amounting to Rs. 60 crore, including interest for the delayed period over the past two years. They had approximately crushed 10 lakh tonnes of sugarcane in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 season.
While they had not paid the State Advised Price for two seasons, they had disbursed the Fair and Remunerative Price to the growers for 2013-14 and were disbursing the same for the current season belatedly. They had not paid the arrears of the Additional Cane Price relating to 2004-09 as stipulated under the Cane Control Order and all that including interest to be paid for the outstanding principal add up to approximately Rs. 60 crore.
The Thanjavur district administration had granted the sugar mills three months for disbursing the arrears and that lapsed on Friday with no sign of payment. Now the administration and the State government must intervene effectively and make the mills pay up, Mr. Vimalnathan demanded.
Vice-president of the All India Farm Labourers' Sangam V. Jeevakumar alleged that there was problem in assured three-phase power supply for irrigation in certain areas of the district and that must be redressed.
Crop insurance
He demanded crop insurance for betel vine growers as the crop was fickle and incurred a lot of investment for growing. Banks and primary agricultural cooperative societies must extend credit to farmers sans any strings attached to help the overcome troubles caused natural causes, he said.
District secretary of the Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam Samy Natarajan wanted continued water supply to the tail end aycut of Grand Anicut Canal that was not getting adequate water for irrigation. Instead of just writing letters to the Centre on getting Karnataka release water in Cauvery, the State government must convene all-party meeting involving farmers organisations, discuss the issue and meet the Prime Minister for effective ground action, he urged.
District Collector N. Subbaiyan assured farmers that their grievances would be given due consideration and action would be taken to ameliorate their problems.
District Revenue Office P. Chandrasekaran, Joint Director of Agriculture Gnana Oli, Manimaran, Senior Regional Manager, Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, and other officials participated in the proceedings.
