Sugarcane growers on Friday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led government in Punjab of ‘betraying’ farmers, following an announcement by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to increase the State Agreed Price (SAP) for sugarcane crop by ₹11 per quintal, which the farmer bodies termed as “too little”.
Mr. Mann on Friday announced a hike of ₹11 per quintal in sugarcane price, claiming that the new rate of ₹391 per quintal is the highest in India. The farmers’ groups, however, rejected the amount as insufficient.
Scores of farmers, led by Bharti Kisan Union (Doaba) under the collective banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), held sit-in protests in Punjab’s Jalandhar last month; they demanded a hike in SAP from ₹380 per quintal to ₹450 per quintal. After State government’s assurance to look into their demand, they had stopped their agitation.
While the Chief Minister said the hike in SAP would immensely benefit the farmers, the BKU (Doaba) president Manjit Singh Rai termed the hike as “too little”.
“The hike is too little, it’s a betrayal of the farmers. There’s nothing to be happy with this scant rise in the SAP. We were hopeful that the State government would at least take the SAP to ₹400 per quintal. But the government has let us down,” Mr. Rai said.
“If the State government does not revise the SAP, we would be left with no choice but to restart our agitation,” he said.
In a statement, Mr. Mann announced a hike of ₹11 in the SAP, taking the SAP for sugarcane growers to ₹391 per quintal for their yield. He said Punjab will be giving the highest rate of sugarcane across the country. The Chief Minister said that all the cooperative and private sugar mills of Punjab will run its affairs as per the revised rates from December 2.
