Cane dues worth over Rs 1700 crore still pending with mills in UP

Lucknow, Sep 11(UNI) Even as the fresh sugarcane crushing season begins in another 20 days, the Uttar Pradesh government is facing a hard time in realising the pending dues of the farmers from the mills, which amount to over Rs 1700 crore.

After the deadline of August 31, set by Chief Minister Mayawati, for the mills to pay back the entire arrear amount of the farmers, the government has issued Recovery Certificate(RC) against 13 erring private sugar mills in the first week of September.

Of the total arrear of the cane farmers, a whopping Rs 1352.66 crore was of the 74 private mills out of the total 83 operating in the state.

The 22 mills of the Public Sector Undertaking(PSU) has an arrear of Rs 186.91 crore and Rs 226.53 crore was backlog of the farmers from 28 mills of the cooperative sector.

State sugarcane development minister Nasiuddin Siddique told UNI here today that the government was committed to realise entire arrear from the sugar mills at the earliest and will also ensure that they start their crushing season on time from October 1.

'' We have already issued RC against 13 private mills for not making the payment to the farmers by August 31'', he said adding that the government was holding meeting with the mills owners to sort out the issue.

The RC was issued against Billari, Khaikheri, Dhampur, Rajpura, Asmauli, Sirmau, Agawanpur, Modinagar, Padrauna, Nawabganj, Malakpur, Gauraura and Barkarpur sugar mills.

The minister said Chief Minister Mayawati had also written to the Centre for a financial package of Rs 2000 crore for the ailing sugar industry in UP following the slump in the price of sugar in the national and international market.

However, the private sugar mill representatives have pointed that there was a glut of sugar in UP due to a record production of over 8.5 million tonne in 2006-07. The situation has been further aggravated by the slump in prices of sugar and crash in price in the international market.

According to the cane department, 83 private sugar mills, 28 co-operative sugar mills and 22 PSU sector units together purchased sugarcane worth Rs 11,010.66 crore. Of this the industry has paid Rs 9244.56 crore to the farmers while Rs 1766.10 crore or 16 per cent remains to be cleared.

The private sugar mills with Rs 1352.66 crore tops the list of arrears while the PSU mills have paid Rs 425.61 crore against the purchase of Rs 612.52 crore and co-operative mills owe Rs 226.53 crore against the purchase of sugarcane worth Rs 1,306.20 crore.

In 2005-06 crusing season, all the sugar mills of the private, PSUs and cooperative sector had paid cent per cent of the dues amounting to Rs 6899.91 crore to the farmers but in 2006-07 they had paid till date only Rs 9244.56 crore out of the standing due of Rs 11010.66 crore.

UNI