The Raju-Shetti led Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) and the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have lambasted the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for its apathy towards farmers after it issued a notification announcing the payment of the fair and remunerative price (FRP) to sugarcane farmers in two separate instalments instead of at one go.
While Mr. Shetti had dubbed the State government’s ordinance (which comes in force in the 2022-23 cane crushing season) ‘illegal’ and has threatened to move the Bombay High Court, the BJP has said it would launch a State–wide agitation in March to protest the government’s move.
“The State government better read the Centre’s guidelines on the matter carefully…No State government has been given the authority to declare FRP payment to farmers in instalments. This is illegal... we will be moving the High Court to quash it,” said Mr. Shetti, the former two-time MP from Hatkanangale in Kolhapur — a key district in Maharashtra’s “sugar heartland”.
As per the State government’s notification, the first instalment of the payment is to be the basic FRP of a region (depending on the average sugar recovery) while the second instalment would take into account the income from the sale of sugar and ethanol manufactured from various sources like cane juice, ‘B heavy’ or ‘C molasses’.
As per the government notification, the State has been divided into two recovery zones — the revenue divisions of Pune and Nashik where the average recovery (until the final sugar extraction of the cane crushing season) is at least 10% and the divisions of Aurangabad, Amravati Nagpur with an average recovery of 9.5%.
Stating that this double instalment FRP policy will push farmers into penury, Mr. Shetti dared the MVA government and sugar mill owners to implement it.
“If the State government, in collusion with sugar mill owners who are acting like a gang of robbers, thinks it can exploit sugarcane farmers in this manner, then it is begging for a showdown with us [SSS] which will assuredly happen soon,” warned the farmer leader.
“The BJP will hold a State–wide agitation to protest against the exploitation of sugarcane farmers under the MVA regime,” said Chandrakant Patil, BJP’s Maharashtra unit chief, while accusing the MVA of utterly ignoring the welfare of the State’s sugarcane farmers.
He said sugar mills owners would be violating stipulated norms if they indulged in partial FRP payments to farmers.
“When the BJP was in power in the State, we had given an interest-free loan of ₹2,100 crore to sugar mills to help them tide over any financial stress. This had helped them to make swift payments to farmers without any delay,” Mr. Patil said, criticising the MVA’s ordinance.
He said as per rules, sugar mills were bound to pay farmers within 14 days of procuring the sugarcane.
“If any sugar mill fails to do so, it is mandatory for them to make the payment along with an interest to compensate the delay. The MVA government, with its new ordinance, is helping neither the cause of the sugar mills nor that of the farmers,” said the Maharashtra BJP president.
