Tamil Nadu pulls up private sugar mills over dues

Tamil Nadu pulls up private sugar mills over dues

Chennai: India’s fourth-largest sugar producer, Tamil Nadu, has begun sending notices to private sugar producers holding outstanding dues to farmers amid a climate of growing clamour from political parties and farmers’ protests recently. The notices constitute the latest push from the government to make sugar mills pay dues to sugarcane farmers.

Earlier, the state electricity board had begun releasing pending payments of Rs 300 crore due to sugar mills for supplying power, which in return could help mills pay back farmers
“This year, we are increasing the pressure on sugar mills to pay up. At least, the dues with regard to the Fair and Remunerative Price set up by the Centre need to be settled. All district collectors have been asked to engage with mills in their jurisdiction,“ Mahesan Kasirajan, Commissioner, Directorate of Sugar, told ET.
The state government has sent the notices under the Revenue Recovery Act, the law that enables revenue officials to appropriate properties to retrieve land revenue.

“The cane dues owed to the farmers are now being treated as they are owed to the state…last year, one mill in Cuddalore district was sealed shut, which sent out a message. This time around, we are stepping up the action,“ he said.

The stringent measures follow a demonstration by farmers in Chennai just ahead of Diwali last month. The protest received support from leader of opposition MK Stalin, who sent a sharply worded statement that pegged total dues to farm . 2,000, taking into ers at nearly ` account private and state-run mills. Farmers’ associations estimate dues from private mills at well over `. 1,000 crore if the State-advised Price is considered.
For the 2015-16 sugar year, the SAP had been fixed at `2,850 a tonne, a price that .debt-laden sugar mills say they would find difficult to pay despite continuous increases in sugar prices over the last 10 months.

On the part of sugar mills, representatives say the price increases need to sustain even longer for them to make profits.
 

 

Source: ECONOMIC TIMES