‘Government may rework pricing ordinance for sugarcane’ (November 20) is a clear case of politics hurting the common man who has to pay Rs 45 per kg of sugar as against the earlier price of less than Rs 20. While the central government declared a price of Rs 129.85 per quintal, the Haryana government declared a price of Rs 185/quintal and UP announced a price of Rs 180/quintal. In many countries, the price of sugarcane is paid taking into account the sucrose content. The merit of this system is that farmers plant high sucrose variety of sugarcane and adopt better farm practices.
States which declared higher prices were expected to bear the difference in price, and this is the nub of the controversy. The present crisis in sugar is due to a drop in the area under cane cultivation in UP from 28.50 lakh hectare in 2007-08 to 21.40 lakh hectare in 2008-09 and to 15 lakh hectare this year.
MM Gurbaxani, Bangalore
