Sugarcane price war set to hot up again in state

The event is aimed at emphasising their demand from the Mayawati government to hike the State Administered Price (SAP) of sugarcane for the 2009-10 cane crushing season.

For 2009-10,the UP government fixed the SAP at Rs 165-170 per quintal,while farmers cutting across regions of the vast state have demanded a price of Rs 280 per quintal for their produce.

The Kisan Panchayat is also being seen as a big political show by the Congress to outsmart a similar ‘Kisan Panchayat’ led by Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Ajit Singh in Delhi on November 9. Their demand was a rollback of the ordinance for creating new regime ‘Fair and remunerative price (FRP)’ for fixing the sugarcane prices in the state.

The Kisan Panchayat of the Congress to be led by AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh,also in-charge of UP,will tell farmers that “they are being misled by the RLD-SP and Bhartiya Kisan Union combine”.

Digvijay Singh will arrive here on December 16 and lead the farmers’ agitation along with V M Singh,convener of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (RKMS).

VM Singh had contested the last parliamentary election from Pilibhit as a Congress candidate against Varun Gandhi of the BJP.

“RLD and others have tried to derive political mileage at the expense of sugarcane farmers and the focus of attention was shifted from Lucknow to Delhi. This diluted the agitation of farmers demanding better price for sugarcane,” said V M Singh,convener of RKMS.

He added: “You will see a much bigger turnout in our panchayat where farmers are expected to come from all parts of the state as against the RLD’s Delhi rally where farmers were drawn out from a particular district of West UP.”

Singh’s agenda is clear: The Cane Commissioner of UP government issues the cane reservation order which decides on the sugar mills that the farmers/Cane cooperative society will supply their produce to. Therefore,he is bound to ensure that a fair and agreed price is paid to sugarcane growers.

“We seek the intervention of UP Chief Minister Mayawati to revise the

SAP from Rs 165-170 per quintal to Rs 280 per quintal. The issue cannot be left to netas of various political parties and cane cooperative societies with political affiliations,” argued VM Singh.