Let farmers clear loans with old Rs 500, Rs 1,000 notes: HS Mahadeva Prasad
Of the 68 sugar factories in the state, 39 had already started crushing the cane.
BENGALURU: Cooperation Minister H.S. Mahadeva Prasad on Tuesday appealed to the Reserve Bank of India and the Union government to allow farmers to repay their cooperative loans with Rs 1000 and Rs 500 denomination notes till at least the end of December.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the last date for repayment of cooperative loans was November 15 and the RBI had issued a circular to all states asking them not to accept repayment through demonetised currencies. “But this will badly affect farmers and so I appeal to the Union government and the finance minister to allow repayment till December end using the old currency notes,” he added. Moving on, the minister said that the state was expecting lower sugar production this year owing to lower yield of the sugarcane crop. In 2015 when the state produced 396 lakh MT of sugarcane, the sugar output was 40.45 lakh MT. But in 2016-17, the projected sugarcane production was around 362 lakh MT, and sugar production was expected to be around 30.90 lakh MT.
Of the 68 sugar factories in the state, 39 had already started crushing the cane. But four sugar factories, including MySugar in Mandya, and the Pandavapura sugar factories would not be crushing cane due to technical reasons, he explained. The minister revealed that the Fixed Rate Price for sugarcane was between Rs 498 and Rs 619 per tonne this year.
