The Uttar Pradesh government has issued recovery certificates (RCs) against 12 private sugar mills for failure to pay farmers’ dues on time.
These units belong to Mawana, Modi and Birla groups, besides standalone units of Venus Sugar Mill and Anand Agro and are located in Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Meerut, Bareilly and Gorakhpur.
T his is the first instance of the state government issuing RCs in the crushing season 2010-11.
Sugarcane development and sugar industry minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui said the government would not tolerate any laxity in the payment of farmers’ dues and commission of cane societies. He said these units had failed to act despite multiple missives from the department.
So far, Rs 12,436 crore had been paid to cane farmers by mills against total dues of Rs 12,929 crore.
A total of 102 private sugar mills had participated in crushing this season, of which 62 units had paid their full dues. The remaining mills had been warned to pay within the stipulated time. Mills get 14 days’ time from the delivery of cane at the factory gate to pay the farmers without attracting penalty.
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Last week, Business Standard had reported that a meeting had been convened this week over the issue of pending cane dues amounting to over Rs 950 crore. Sugar production has been pegged at 5.9 million tonnes in Uttar Pradesh. Last year, although cane acreage and production figures were much lower, the farmers were paid much higher.
The total payout to farmers was around Rs 13,200 crore due to higher cane prices hovering around Rs 250-300 per quintal due to spurt in sugar retail prices.