Mumbai: Even as this year recorded an estimated production of 13.8 million metric tonnes of sugar, touted to be the highest since records have been maintained, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday announced a grant of ₹200 per tonne to cooperative sugar mills to facilitate the crushing of the remaining 1.95 lakh tonnes of sugarcane.
Sugar mills have also been directed to extend their crushing season, which began on October 15, 2021, till the end of May.
The state will also provide an additional grant of ₹5 per tonne per kilometre for transportation of cane from the fields to the mills. In all, this will result in the burden of ₹100 crore on the state exchequer.
The decision comes on the back of a massive amount of sugarcane that remains uncrushed and unharvested leading to widespread unrest among sugarcane farmers. Last week, the suicide of a farmer in Beed, on account of an acre of his field still unharvested and uncrushed, caused a political storm. The cooperative sugar industry is the backbone of the state’s rural economy.
What’s more, most of the 199 sugar mills run by cooperative bodies or private companies lie in western and central Maharashtra, where ruling coalition parties of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Shiv Sena and Congress have support. The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government cannot afford unrest among the farmers ahead of the impending local body polls slated for later this year.
Of the 132 million lakh tonnes cane available for the crushing, 130 million MT has been crushed till May 16. Greater area under cultivation, higher production of sugarcane and high temperature led to the delay in the crushing of the sugarcane. This in turn resulted in losses to cane cultivators in Beed, Jalna, Ahmednagar and Latur districts, where lakhs of tonnes of sugarcane are yet to be crushed.
On May 11, 32-year old Namdev Jadhav died by suicide after setting his unharvested sugarcane field on fire. The farmer from Hingangaon village in Georai district of Beed feared losses as his standing crop was not taken to mill for crushing in time, according to the local police.
Thackeray has asked the cooperation department to ensure the crushing continues until the entire stock is taken to the mills. He has also directed the department to plan the next crushing season carefully and start from October 1.
Pandurang Shelke, joint commissioner, Sugar Commissionerate said that 73 sugar factories are operational currently and they expect to crush the entire stock by month end. “We have been helping farmers and mills to complete the crushing in given time. The grant given by the government will help the factories to prolong the crushing as some of them have not been getting the adequate stock to continue crushing,” he said.
Vitthal Pawar, president, Sharad Joshi Vichar Manch, a farmers’ organization, said that the state government was giving the false figures of the uncrushed sugarcane. “At least 4 million tonnes of cane is still lying in the field and is unlikely to be cut fully. Even the government knows that neither the farmers nor the factories are in condition to cut and crush the remaining stock of the cane. The grant announced by the state government will go the sugar factories. The state should buy the remaining stock by giving ₹1 lakh per acre to the cultivators and use the cane for fodder,” he said.
Maharashtra BJP’s vice president Madhav Bhandari said that the held-up crushing is the result of the mismanagement of the state government. “The decision of the grant is because of the protest BJP held in Pune. The grant announced towards the transportation should be credited in the bank accounts of farmers and not be given to the factories,” he said.