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The Centre on Wednesday increased the minimum price sugar mills pay to sugarcane growers by Rs 5 to Rs 290 per quintal for the next marketing year starting October 2021
Farmers seeking a hike in sugarcane prices continued to block rail tracks and a national highway in Punjab's Jalandhar
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday approved a Rs 15 per quintal hike in the State Agreed Price (SAP) of all sugarcane varieties for the 2021-22 crushing season
Proposed reforms are good but much more needs to be done
Sources said the first meeting of a panel constituted to look into various issues pertaining to the sugar sector was held sometime back
It has also pitched for a one-time increase in minimum sugar price to Rs 33 per kilo to help sugar mills cover the cost of production
This is the second straight year that the govt has kept prices unchanged. It had hiked the price by Rs 10 per quintal for the common variety in its maiden year in office, during 2017-18 season
Allahabad HC did not restrict the Yogi Adityanath government from fixing SAP for the current crushing season 2018-19 or make any observation regarding its maintainability
The decision also comes at a time when Karnataka, a leading sugarcane producing state, is going for legislative assembly polls on May 12
The arrears for 2016-17 stood at ~9.03 billion and earlier years at Rs 16.86 billion
According to Icra, the increase in sugarcane FRP is expected to raise the cost of sugar production
Union Cabinet approving 10.87% hike in Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of sugarcane to Rs. 255/- per quintal for sugar season 2017-18 has made sugar milling industry worried as normal monsoon this year is expected to see bumper cane crop and sugar production could also rise sharply from last season's 20.3 million tons which is lowest after 2009-10 season. In current decade sugarcane FRP has increased 80 per cent while average sugar price has increased only 80 per cent.T Sarita Reddy, President Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA)said, "sugar prices are not rising in sync with sugarcane prices and with bumper sugar output possible in 17-18 season on the back of normal monsoon projections, sugar price likely to come down next season. At that time if price payable to farmers go up, it will be difficult to manage. We want farmers to get their remunerative price but also want sugarcane price linked with sugar price according to Rangarajan formula."Despite very low sugar production this .
With sugar prices improving and helping mills, the central government announced it had raised its "Fair and Remunerative Price' of sugarcane for the 2017-18 season that starts from October by Rs 25 a quintal, to Rs 255 a qtl, the first increase in two years.This decision of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will impact about 50 million farmers. The FRP is a recommendation to states (which can raise it) on a minimum price that mills have to pay to cane farmers. It was kept unchanged at Rs 230 a qtl for the current 2016-17 year (October-September).CCEA also approved the raising of Rs 2,360 crore through bonds for renewable energy projects in this financial year.The cane price increase is likely to result in states which do ot adopt the Centre's FRP, such as Uttar Pradesh, raising their own minimum prices. UP, Punjab and Haryana fix their own 'State Advisory Price' (SAP), higher than the Centre's FRP.UP had fixed the SAP for the current 2016-17 year at Rs 305 and Rs 315 a .
Mills have to pay Rs 255 per 100 kg from Oct 2017