K'taka to revive sick sugar industries to help ryots

Mysore, May 23 (UNI) The Karnataka Government will soon revive sick and closed sugar factories to help sugarcane farmers in the state, Revenue and Sugar Minister Jagadish Shettar announced today.

Inaugurating the South India Sugarcane Growers Meet here, he said in all there were 52 sugar factories in the state, of which 11 had either closed down or stopped crushing work.

Referring to the fixing of sugarcane prices in the state, he said he would soon convene a meeting of farmers, sugar factory managements and others in Bangalore to take a decision in this regard.

He also assured farmers that they would get payments from sugarcane companies immediately for supply of cane.

Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture Minister Bandeppa Kashempur urged cane growers to adapt to drip irrigation to save water. The government had been providing more than 75 per cent of subsidy for drip irrigation in the state, he said and asked farmers to avail the facility.

In order to balance the disparity in cane yield between northern and southern parts of Karnataka, the government had planned to educate farmers in north Karnataka region on how to increase production by setting up demonstration plots, he said. At present, southern parts produced 50 tonnes per acre while northern parts yeilded only 20 tonnes, he added.

Calling for a change in crop pattern, Housing and District incharge Minister G T Jayakumar urged sugarcane growers to adopt new technology to increase production.

The meet was jointly organised by the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association (CIFA), Karnataka State Farmers Organisation Federation, National Sugar Commodity Committee and Sugarcane Growers Association of Mysore and Chamrajanagar.

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