New Delhi: After the BJP’s defeat in recent bypolls, particularly in the sugar belt of Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, the Centre on Wednesday doled out a a sweet deal for sugarcane farmers. With reports that sugarcane farmers are up in arms against the Centre, the Cabinet on Wednesday came out with a bailout package of Rs 8,500 crores to boost farmers’ incomes by creating a buffer stock for sugar, enhancing ethanol production capacity and fixing a minimum selling price to cut mill losses.
The Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved Rs 4,440 crores in soft loans for building ethanol production capacity to absorb the cane and a buffer stock of three million tonnes, besides for the first time fixing Rs 29 per kg as the minimum price below which mills cannot sell sweeteners. These decisions are aimed at helping mills to clear part of the arrears of over Rs 22,000-crores to cane farmers.
The maximum cane dues of over Rs 12,000 crores are in Uttar Pradesh, the nation’s biggest sugarcane-producing state. With 80 Lok Sabha seats, this package is seen as an attempt by the government to woo sugarcane farmers ahead of the 2019 general election. The bailout package is important as the Lok Sabha polls are less than an year away and the party wants to retain the maximum number of seats from the state.
