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Farmers' organisation Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha today rejected government's decision to offer Rs 150 per tonne more in addition to Rs 2,500 per tonne fixed as price for sugarcane crop, saying the increase was "meagre."
"We do not welcome the meagre incentive of Rs 150 per tonne," Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha President Kodihalli Chandrashekhar told reporters in Belgaum outside the Suvarna Soudha near where hundreds of farmers are protesting demanding better price for sugarcane.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced the incentive in the Assembly, hours after sugarcane farmer Vittal Bheemappa Arabhavi committed suicide by consuming pesticide at the protest site on Wednesday.
He said it is unfair to expect farmers to settle for Rs 2,500 per tonne when sugar factories are reaping huge profits.
Reiterating the demand to fix the price at at least Rs 3,500 per tonne, Chandrashekhar said KRRS will continue its fight until government fixes a satisfactory price.
Parties for early resolution
With sugarcane growers up in arms in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh seeking a better price and sugar industry wanting a package, Congress and JD (U) on Friday demanded immediate intervention of the government and sought a halt on the import of raw sugar.
"The government must take a quick decision on sugar. Import of raw sugar should be stopped and export of sugar should be opened and incentivised," Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh said.
"At prevailing prices sugar industry is not sustainable. GOI must act quickly and decisively," he said in two tweets.
Expressing serious concern over the decision to not run their factories by an organisation of mill owners, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), JD(U) MP K C Tyagi said that if they do not start running them by December 4, the government should acquire and run the sugar mills.
Tyagi said that a sum of Rs 3000 crore is due on sugar mills on which the mill owners are silent.
"JD(U) demands that the GoM set up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should try to resolve the problem by talking to representatives of sugarcane farmers as well," he said.
"If mill-owners throw tantrums in running the mills after December 4, the government should acquire the sugar mills and run them," he added.
Agitating sugarcane farmers in are on a two-day bandh since yesterday demanding higher prices for sugarcane.
Recently, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan led an all-party delegation to meet the Prime Minister over the issue.
Singh had announced setting up of a three-member committee under Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to examine sugarcane farmers and millers' problems and suggest remedies.
ISMA had served an ultimatum to UP government that if state advisory price (SAP) of sugar cane was increased, there would be no crushing this year and mills would come to a stand still as it is burdened with over Rs 3,000 crore debt.
It had been pressing that the government should implement the recommendations of Rangarajan Committee and bring down the state advisory price.
