January 18, 2015
The Asian Age
By Faisal Malik
The Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government has made several demands to the Centre to help Maharashtra’s crisis-ridden sugarcane industry. These include rescheduling of loans for sugar mills, subsidy on export of raw sugar and increasing the import duty on raw sugar. However, the government has got no immediate relief from the Centre, as Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has assured that a decision in this regard would be taken by January 21.
Following a decline in sugar prices, sugar mills have expressed inability to pay sugarcane farmers Rs 2,200 per tonne, as per the fair and remunerative price (FRP) set by the Centre. As a result, sugarcane farmers have started protests in several parts of western Maharashtra, demanding FRP for the crop.
To resolve the matter, Mr Fadnavis was in Delhi on Saturday, requesting the Centre to consider their demands. He, along with a delegation consisting of leaders from all parties, met the Mr Jaitley and Union food and civil supply minister Ram Vilas Paswan, before whom the delegation placed six major demands.
The state has demanded subsidy on raw sugar, rescheduling the loan of sugar mills, allowing loan to sugar mills from sugar development fund, hiking import duty on raw sugar, quick implementation of 10 per cent ethanol blending programme, soft loans on Central excise duty and helping the state government build a storage facility for sugar with a capacity of 50 lakh metric tonnes.
Raosaheb Danve, the state BJP president, said that the meeting with both the ministers was positive and that they have assured that a concrete decision on the demands would be taken by January 21.
“Now, when the Centre has assured help for sugar mills, I don’t think there is any problem left for them to release the amount for the sugarcane crop as per FRP,” said state cooperation minister Chandrakant Patil, who was also part of the delegation.