 "Sugar farmers put off Dec 4 protest")
The mill owners under the South Indian Sugar Mills Association (SISMA) met in Bangalore on Monday and decided to make their stand clear to the chief minister.
The mills have also decided to question the state government's move to fix cane price, if the chief minister does not respond positively to their demands, the industry sources said.
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Meanwhile, following late night discussions with Siddaramaiah on Monday, sugarcane growers have temporarily withdrawn their protest rally. President of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha Kodihalli - told Business Standard that the farmers would wait for the outcome of the meeting of Chief Ministers of sugarcane growing states to be held in New Delhi on December 6.
"We are temporarily withdrawing our protest following an assurance by Siddaramaiah to give him time to make efforts to get justice for them at the meeting convened by the Center. He has told us that he will present the case of state sugarcane farmers effectively at the meeting in Delhi," Chandrashekhar said.
Meanwhile, former sugar minister and BJP MLA Umesh Katti who owns the Vishwaraj Sugars in Belgaum district, former minister Murugesh Nirani of BJP who runs Nirani Sugars in Mudhol of Bagalkot district dared the state government to take action against them for not paying the minimum purchase price of Rs 2,650 per tonne of sugarcane as stipulated by the government.
They said the government could very well take over all the private sugar factories in the north Karnataka region and run them and also pay Rs 2,650 per tonne of sugarcane to the farmers. According to them, compelling factories to pay Rs 2,650 per tonne was not economical.
Vidya Murkumbi, chairperson of Renuka Sugars had earlier said she was ready to close the factory, a better alternative to running it at a loss.
Sugarcane farmers had held a protest rally in Mysore on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum to the deputy commissioner. The farmers demanded the government to direct the sugar mills to pay Rs 650 towards the cost of harvest and transport of cane to mills as done in the northern districts.
"The cost of production of sugarcane is Rs 2800 per tonne and the Rs 2,650 fixed by the government for the current season is not sufficient to meet the cost. So, the government should enhance the cane price," said Kurubur Shanthkumar, president, Karnataka Sugarcane Growers' Association.
He said 48 out of 58 mills in the state are paying H&T cost to growers, while only 12 mills in Southern parts of the state have been left out of the H&T mechanism. "It is not right on the part of the government to leave out these mills. The government should enforce uniform pricing mechanism for all mills across the state," he said.
LAND BILL PASSED
Legislative Assembly on Monday passed the Karnataka Land Revenue (Second) Amendment Bill 2012, for regularisation of unauthorised constructions on revenue lands in urban areas. January 1, 2012, will be the cut-off date for such constructions.The plinth area of a dwelling house located on a site not more than 20x30 ft dimension will be regularised.
Earlier, Governor H.R. Bhardwaj had returned the Bill adopted during the BJP regime to the state government on the grounds that the "policy of regularisation of encroachment of government land directly encouraged illegal occupation of government land". The Governor had returned the Bill with a message under Article 200 of the Constitution for reconsideration of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council citing the report of the State Task Force for Protection of Public Lands, headed by the former IAS official V Balasubramanian.
The Bill inserted Section 94 CC in the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964, which empowers the State government to make rules to prescribe the fee and amount for regularisation of unauthorised constructions of a dwelling house and to prescribe the conditions and restrictions for such regularisation.