The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court Monday reserved its judgment on a petition seeking directions to the government for early payment of cane arrears to the farmers. The petition was filed by farmer leaders SD Singh and VM Singh. The court reserved its judgement after the state government submitted its affidavit today, said V M Singh. The state government,in its affidavit,sought more time for clearance of cane dues. Earlier,on July 4,the court had directed the state government to clear all cane dues within six weeks. The total cane dues of the sugar industry in the state stands at Rs 2,391.93 crore,which belongs to private sugar mills,as the cooperative sugar mills cleared their dues of Rs 75 crore recently. The sugar industry,which is complaining of high sugarcane prices and low rates of sugar in the market,has been demanding financial help from the state government. As a result,there is a deadlock as the farmers are awaiting the payment of their dues while the mills await the start of the new crushing season for clearing the arrears. The industry is also apprehensive about the new state advisory price (SAP) of sugarcane,which is decided by the state government before the start of the crushing season. Uttar Pradesh has one of the highest SAP for sugarcane in the country. In 2012-13,the Samajwadi Party government had increased SAP for canes by Rs 40,fixing it at Rs 280 per quintal. With 2014 being an election year,the sugar industry is apprehensive of an even higher SAP for cane this year. The Indian Sugar Mills Association has said it cannot pay more than Rs 240 per quintal of cane in the coming season,while the government officials maintain that there are hardly any chances of SAP being fixed at anything lower that the last years rate.
