A record payment of about Rs 12,228 crore has been made by Uttar Pradesh sugar mills to farmers during the 2009-10 crushing season.
This is the highest ever sugarcane payment made in the state, which is the leading cane producing state in India.
Last year, about Rs 5,925 crore were paid to farmers, while during 2006-07 season, when UP had posted a record sugar production of about 8.5 million tonnes, the total payment had stood at around Rs 4,000 crore.
However, the sugarcane prices in UP were quite remunerative vis-à-vis earlier years and had peaked to almost Rs 300 per quintal compared to the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of Rs 130 fixed by the Centre and the State Advised Price (SAP) fixed by UP at Rs 165 for common variety.
About Rs 7,000 crore in sugarcane payment is still pending and is likely to be cleared soon.
UP Sugarcane Development and Sugar Industries Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui said almost all the cane arrears had been cleared for the previous years.
While the crushing season is on the fag end, so far the mills had crushed about 56.60 MT, producing about 5.16 MT of sugar. A total of 128 mills had participated in crushing this season.
The UP Sugar Corporation, cooperatives and private sugar mills had produced 1.014 MT, 0.313 MT and 4.755 MT sugar respectively. The cane recovery stood at 9.12 per cent.
Meanwhile, the total sugarcane area during 2010-11 is touted to touch 2.15 million hectares.
UP sugarcane area had successively been shrinking till last year due to the delay in cane payment, confusion on price and multiple litigations. However, things have turned positive for India’s largest cane producing state now.
The cane acreage had stood at 1.79 million hectares during 2009-10 against 2.14 million hectares and 2.85 million hectares in 2008-09 and 2007-08 respectively.
The sugarcane area is likely to increase by greater margin in eastern UP vis-à-vis western region, since the latter had already become saturated.
