The Hindu : Package for cane growers in all States

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2003

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Package for cane growers in all States

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI July 21. Bowing to pressure from other States, the Centre today decided to formulate a comprehensive package of relief to sugarcane farmers all over the country, revising its announcement made four days ago, by which assistance was to be given to cane growers only in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Haryana alone.

The new decision was taken at a meeting convened by the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and attended by the Agriculture Minister, Rajnath Singh, and the Food Minister, Sharad Yadav. Official sources said there was a general consensus that a special treatment could not be meted out to the farmers of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Haryana alone because the three States had declared a procurement price higher than the Centre's Statutory Minimum Price in a bid to encourage farmers to take up sugarcane cultivation. The meeting also decided to drop the plan to take money from the Sugar Development Fund to finance the relief package on the ground that the Fund made up of the cess collected from sugar mills across the country should be primary used to modernise and develop the industry as a whole and also considering that there was not enough resources in the Fund.

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