With the stand-off between sugar mill-owners and the state government still on, the sugar bowl in west Uttar Pradesh is on fire this crushing season.Angered by the delay in starting the mills, farmers are either ransacking police outposts, locking up government offices or are holding mill executives hostage. They are also courting arrest along with their cattle, saying there is no fodder for them. Today, police foiled a self-immolation bid by a farmer, Thakur Bhup Singh, at Thana Bhavan. Earlier, the Bharatiya Kissan Union (BKU) had threatened self-immolation by 12 of its activists in protest against the problems faced by sugar-growers.Reports have also come in of farmers resorting to ‘‘rail roko’’ and ‘‘road roko’’ agitations. BKU activists blocked the Delhi-Dehradun and Delhi-Saharanpur National Highway since this morning.With law and order situation slipping out of hand, UP Chief Minister Mayawati issued an ultimatum to sugar mills to start work or face action.In Meerut, DM Rama Raman has ordered that private sugar mill guesthouses be turned into temporary jails, as the ‘‘jail bharo’’ agitation by BKU activists against unremunerative prices continued. Over 340 farmers courted arrest today.‘‘We are prepared to face lathis and bullets,’’ says BKU chief Mahendra Singh Tikait. ‘‘What else can the farmers do,’’ he asks.In Kinauni village, several farmers have burnt their standing crop.‘‘We did it to clear the fields for wheat. Otherwise, we would stand to lose on that too. The animals are starving,’’ says Sahdev Singh, a farmer. The 35-year-old has burnt the crop on his 10-bigha plot.‘‘We have 13 RLD MLAs from our area, but no one came to our rescue,’’ say farmers sitting on a dharna outside Titawi sugar mill.Tikait squarely blames Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh for the plight of the farmers. ‘‘The farmers are being ruined though Ajit is the Union Agriculture Minister and a coalition partner in the state government,’’ he says.The RLD chief joined the agitation today by staging a dharna before the district magistrate’s office here. His arch rival, Haryana Chief Minister O.P. Chautala, has been telling farmers that sugar-cane growers in his state are getting Rs 110 per quintal.Tikait says prices of farm inputs such as diesel and fertilisers have all gone up, but sugarcane prices have not been increased this year. ‘‘For 95 paisa they pay for sugarcane, you don’t even get lakdi (wood), yeh to ganna hai (this is sugarcane),’’ he adds.Farmers say they had spent more on the crop this year due to the dry spell. ‘‘We had to pay farm hands Rs 70-100 to water the fields, given the poor power supply,’’ a cane-grower said.Though Mayawati did not raise sugar prices this year (keeping it at Rs 95 and Rs 100 per quintal), sugar mill-owners say they cannot pay the price. They claim that last year’s sugar stocks are still lying in piles. Meanwhile, khandsaris and kolhus are making hay. Farmers are selling sugarcane to them at Rs 45-60 per quintal.
