More Than 99.18% Sugarcane Arrears Paid To UP Farmers In 2021-22 Season: Food Ministry Tells LS

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution informed Lok Sabha that for the last season 2021-22, more than 99.18% sugarcane arrears have been paid to the farmers in Uttar Pradesh.

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The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has announced that Uttar Pradesh's farmers have received over 99.18% of their sugarcane arrears for the 2021-22 season. The ministry, citing information from the state government, on Wednesday informed Lok Sabha that since 2017, a total payment of Rs. 2,00,404.18 crore has been made towards sugarcane payments, while the total outstanding is Rs. 2,00,719.38 crore. This indicates that sugar mills have settled 99.84% of the cane arrears.

In response to questions about the outstanding amounts owed to farmers by sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh, the ministry stated that more than 99.97% of farmers' cane dues for the 2020-21 and previous seasons have been paid to sugar mills. However, in some instances where sugar mills have delayed payment to farmers, the State Government is negotiating with the relevant mills to settle the payments quickly.

The ministry further clarified that there are no directions to the West Bengal government regarding timely payment to sugarcane farmers since no sugar mills are currently operational in the state. Therefore, there are no issues of pending dues.

Last week on Monday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath flagged off 77 tractors for farm machinery banks set up in cooperative sugarcane and sugar mill societies.  "Today is going to be a historic day for the sugarcane farmers when on the eve of Holi, Rs 2 lakh crores will be sent directly to the farmers' bank accounts through DBT," CM Yogi said, as quoted by the news agency ANI. Prior to 2017, the state's sugarcane farmers were compelled to burn their crops because of a lack of water for irrigation, electricity, and timely payment of their dues.

In the previous six years, no farmer in Uttar Pradesh became helpless and attempted suicide, said CM Yogi. The Chief Minister added, "We have freed the sugarcane farmers from the brokers' clutches, and today the farmers do not have to wander around in search of the slip because their slip arrives on their smartphone."

He said that the state's 77 sugarcane committees are receiving tractors and other equipment today. The happiness of sugarcane farmers will be doubled by receiving such a gift on the eve of Holi. "We all know what the condition of sugarcane farmers was earlier. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, the farmer has for the first time been included in any government's agenda and has begun to benefit from the government's programs. Every farmer who was previously dependent on moneylenders is now able to benefit from the Soil Health Card, Kisan Bima Yojana, Agricultural Irrigation Scheme, and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi", CM Yogi said, as quoted by ANI.

The CM went on to say that it is due to the efforts of sugarcane farmers that they are producing additional 10 tonnes of sugarcane per hectare. Apart from this, the area of sugarcane production has increased to 8 lakh hectares of additional land in the state today.

"In contrast to the previous governments, where sugar mills were closed or sold at throwaway prices, we did not shut down any sugar mill, and instead re-started the closed sugar mills. Munderwa and Pipraich sugar mills were made functional again. When the world's sugar mills were shut down, Uttar Pradesh still had 119 sugar mills operating," said Yogi.

He emphasized that during the Covid-19 period, when sanitisers were in short supply across the country, the government made sanitisers available at no cost to all municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh via these sugar mills. Along with this, sanitisers were made available in 27 states across the country.

The Chief Minister stated that his government paid the sugarcane price on time and procured wheat and paddy at the higher minimum support price. "For this more and more purchase centres were established. The instructions were clear: as long as the farmers had crops, the government would purchase them. No farmer will have to wander around. We have issued 284 licenses for the Khadsari units, which has resulted in job creation."