‘No question of reducing cane price’

Talking to The Indian Express on the sidelines of an event in Lucknow,Principal Secretary,Sugar Industries and Cane Development,Rahul Bhatnagar ruled out any roll-back in cane prices by the state government.

“There is no question of reducing the price from its current figure,” he said. Bhatnagar has also ruled out any financial help to the sugar sector in the payment of its arrears to the farmers.

The principal secretary has,however,maintained that the State Advisory Price (SAP) on sugar cane is yet to be decided with the final call to be taken by the state government.

“The cane arrears will be cleared soon. The condition is not as bad as it is being made out to be and the industry should be resilient enough to sustain itself. Sugar prices will not always remain this low,” Bhatnagar said in response to the industry’s claims that due to low sugar prices,it is incurring a huge loss.

On the Indian Sugar Industries’ Association’s demand to link the sugar cane prices to sugar price,Bhatnagar said that the government will consider these issues while deciding on the cane price for the next crushing season.

The new cane crushing season begin from October end and the farmers’ dues for the last season,which ended in May,are yet to be cleared.

Until Tuesday,the cane arrears stood at Rs 2,421.32 crore for private sugar mills and Rs 74.88 crore for cooperative sugar mills,which totals to Rs 2496.20 crore.