Why Haryana’s sugarcane farmers are threatening to intensify stir over support prices
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Why Haryana’s sugarcane farmers are threatening to intensify stir over support prices

Support prices kept unchanged, BKU (Charuni), BKU (Tikait) & SKM said they will hold Kisan Mahapanchayats in January if demands aren't met even as CM Khattar announced a review panel.

   
Demonstrators burn effigies, demanding hike in support prices of sugarcane, in Karnal, Haryana on Thursday | By special arrangement

Demonstrators burn effigies, demanding hike in support prices of sugarcane, in Karnal, Haryana on Thursday. | By special arrangement

Chandigarh: Sugarcane farmers in Haryana Thursday held protests over the support prices announced by the state government and threatened to hold a mass agitation in the form of a Kisan Mahapanchanyat in Karnal on 10 January if their demand for a hike wasn’t met.

The Haryana government had announced the state approved price (SAP) of sugarcane as Rs 362 and Rs 355 for the early and late varieties of the crop respectively, unchanged from the 2021-22 season.

Amid rumblings of discontent about the prices from farmers’ unions as well as the Opposition, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, on the concluding day of the state assembly’s winter session Wednesday, announced that an expert committee would be constituted to look into the matter and submit its report within 15 days

Responding to the Opposition’s demand for a hike in the SAP, Khattar had said that the sugar mills in the state were already running in heavy losses.

However, the farmers’ unions — Bharatiya Kisan Union (Charuni), BKU (Tikait) and Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) — threatened to intensify the protests and organise Kisan Mahapanchayat in January.

On Thursday, farmers held a protest outside the CM’s camp office (Khattar’s residence in Karnal) and burnt an effigy of the government. “Similar protests were held outside residences of MLAs across Haryana,” Rakesh Bains, media secretary of the BKU (Charuni), told ThePrint. The outfit is demanding a SAP of Rs 450 for the crop.

Reacting to Khattar’s announcement about the formation of a committee, Bains said Wednesday: “If such committees are to take decisions on the SAP, for what has the government has constituted its Sugarcane Control Board? This announcement is just to divert farmers’ attention. But we are not going to change our decision.”  Even Punjab has hiked sugarcane prices and is giving better rates to its farmers than Haryana, he added.

In November this year, the Punjab government notified the price of advanced quality sugarcane at Rs 380, medium quality at Rs 370, and late quality at Rs 365 per quintal.

Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh Thursday, Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda accused the state government of adopting a step-motherly attitude towards sugarcane farmers. “The farmers of the state are demanding a rate of Rs 450 per quintal, but the government is not even ready to give the same rate as in Punjab,” he said.

“This season, the government did not increase the price of sugarcane even by a paisa, pushing the farmers into losses and distress. Due to the delay in fixing the SAP by the government, farmers’ payments have also been delayed,” he added.


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Farmers to intensify stir

According to the crop-wise area, yield, and production targets released by the state government for 2022-23, sugarcane is sown on 1.20 lakh hectares in Haryana. With a yield of 87,000 kgs per hectare, the total production is expected to be 1,04,40,000 tonnes, according to the state Agriculture Department data.  

A notification issued by the office of the additional chief secretary to agriculture and farmers welfare department, Sumita Misra, said: “The governor of Haryana hereby regulates the price of sugarcane supplied to the sugar mills in Haryana during the crushing season 2022-23 to be paid by the sugar mills to cane suppliers in their assigned areas at the rate of ₹362 and ₹355 per quintal for the early and lateral varieties of sugarcane respectively.” 

A day after the government’s announcement, the BKU (Charuni) held a meeting in Karnal and said that they will stop supplies of sugarcane to mills for three hours on 5 January, 2023, in case the government doesn’t pay heed to their demand.

Bains said that if the government didn’t move even after their protests (on 29 December and 5 January), a Kisan Mahapanchayat will be called at Karnal on 10 January to decide future course of action on the issue. 

He added that the government keeps raising the salaries of its employees in accordance with the rising inflation rate. Prices of all commodities required for agriculture like diesel, fertilisers etc have been increasing, but the government has not taken any of these factors into consideration [while deciding the SAP for sugarcane], he added.

Meanwhile, state president of BKU (Tikait) Rattan Mann, addressing mediapersons in Panipat Thursday, announced that farmers under the banner of his union will block all roads in Karnal on 17 January to demand a hike in SAP for sugarcane.

“A tractor march of farmers will start from Panipat on 17 January and proceed towards CM City Karnal (Khattar’s home constituency) and block all roads of the city. Rakesh Tikait, national spokesperson of the BKU (Tikait) will lead the march,” said Mann.

Mann also announced that Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of farmers unions of the country that led year-long protests in Delhi, will hold a Mahapanchayat at Jind on this issue on 26 January.


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Opposition raises issue in Assembly

Congress leader and former CM Hooda and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Singh Chautala raised the issue of sugarcane prices in the state assembly Wednesday.

Hooda said that farmers were facing huge losses due to a rise in input prices for  pesticides, fertilisers, fuel, and so on, but this had not been offset by an increase in the rate of sugarcane prices. 

He claimed that till 2005 the rate of sugarcane in the state was Rs 117 per quintal and it was increased by Rs 193 to Rs 310 during the Congress tenure. “The rate of sugarcane was increased almost three times, 165 per cent during the Congress government and this amounts to an annual increase of about 18.3 percent,” he said.

“The BJP and BJP-JJP government increased the rate of sugarcane by only 17 percent in 8 years, an annual increase of just 2.1 percent. The BJP-JJP government is not anywhere close to the rate hike given during the Congress government,” Hooda had claimed.

Chautala, on his part, demanded that the SAP of sugarcane be increased to Rs 425. “By constituting the committee, the government is merely trying to buy time. If the government is really interested in farmers’ welfare, nothing stops it from hiking the prices, which is even lesser than neighboring Punjab,” Chautala told The Print after the assembly session.

(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)


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