The growing fascination among farmers to sow paddy and wheat considering their higher remuneration is taking a toll on sugar mills in Haryana.
Haryana has total 14 sugar mills, 10 in co-operative sector and three in private sector. One mill is with Hafed.
J P Kaushik, MD, Haryana State Federation of Cooperative Sugar Mills (Sugarfed), said that the area under sugarcane cultivation (under co-operative mills) in the state during the last three years had come down by 65 per cent.
The area under co-operative mills in the state in 2007-08 was 221,497 acres which has been reduced to 82,516 acres in 2009-10.
Clearly, the focus of the farmers is on sowing paddy and wheat that offer better remuneration than sugarcane.
As a result, said Kaushik, the combine crushing quantity of 10 co-operative mills in Haryana plummeted to 11.8 million quintals in 2009-10 (projected) against 33.8 million quintals in 2007-08.
With less availability of sugarcane for the sugar mills, the tonne sugarcane crushed per day (TCD) quantity has come down. As a result of this, sugar mills are not able to utilise their crushing capacity to fullest, thereby incurring losses.
Kaushik added that this year, six co-operative mills were in the red but next year all except one (Shahabad co-operative sugar mill located in Kurukshetra district) are likely to be in the red.
With area under sugarcane cultivation gravitating, not only has it put sugar mills in co-operative sector under stress but also incapacitated the private sugar mills in Haryana.
Saraswati Sugar Mills Chief operating Officer S K Sachdeva said the company had been suffering on account of paddy-wheat gaining prominence with the farmers.
Located in Yamunanagar district , around 200 km north of Delhi, Saraswati Sugar Mill had achieved crushing capacity of 13,000 tonnes per day three years ago, which was highest by any sugar mill in the country in that year .
However, the company has not been able to utilise the TCD facility to its optimum. While in 2006-07 the company crushed 21.9 million quintal of sugarcane, in 2007-08, owing to less supply of sugarcane, the company was able to crush only 17.4 million quintal of sugarcane. In 2008-09, it crushed just 6.8 million quintal of sugarcane.
Sachdeva said hostile weather conditions coupled with less sugarcane acreage had spelled doom for the mill.
Reasons for falling sugarcane cultivation
The wheat-paddy crop offers unparallel remunerations to the farmers which they can’t expect in sugarcane crop. Adds Kaushik, despite the fact that Haryana government was giving highest State Advisory Price (SAP) to its farmers growing sugarcane. The State Advisory Price (SAP) announced by Haryana government for year 2008-09 sugarcane crop was Rs 185 per quintal. This is in addition to the Statutory Minimum Price declared by Centre government.
However the prices is too negligible in comparison of paddy and wheat whose MSP for the year 2008-09 was Rs 850 per quintal for paddy and Rs 1080 per quintal for wheat.
In addition to better remunerations being offered by paddy-wheat cycle the biggest drawback of sugarcane cultivation is it is labour intensive. The mechanisation process in wheat and paddy has helped farmers find solution to the problems labour shortage was posing.
With flagship programmers of United Progressive Alliance(UPA) like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(NREGA) to combat the problem of unemployment by providing minimum 100 days employment to rural people , has put check on migration of people in search of work to other states. This certainly has impacted the labour immigration to states like Punjab and Haryana that are grappling with labour crisis. However mechanisation introduced in wheat and paddy has mitigated the problems for farmers going for paddy and wheat cultivation.
Kaushik adds while the mechanisation in wheat and paddy crop has successfully offset the labour problems, farmers growing sugarcane are still groping for the answer. J P Kaushik adds that the government needs to offer subsidies in addition to existing to farmers going for sugarcane cultivation. Also the burgeoning problem of labour needs to be taken seriously. Like mechanisation has offered solutions to labour problems in wheat and paddy cultivations, mechanisation needs to be introduced in sugarcane crop as well.
Kaushik revealed that Haryana government was in process for purchasing two harvesters costing around Rs 2.5 crores that would be tested on pilot basis.
Also private sugar mills like Saraswati Sugar Mill have earmarked separate budget of Rs 6 crore has been earmarked for farmers to encourage them to go in for sugarcane cultivation. Apart from this the mill already has made provision of Rs 5 crore under which it help sugarcane growing farmers get loan from banks and also ensures quality availability of seeds and regular supply of insecticides to farmers.
