Date:10/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/10/stories/2008101051530300.htm

Karnataka - Davanagere

Association urges sugar units to implement GO

Staff Correspondent

‘Many factories not paying Rs. 160 a tonne of cane
in addition to Statutory
Minimum Price’

DAVANGERE: Davangere unit of the Karnataka State Sugarcane Growers Association has demanded that the State Government direct sugar factories to implement its order on paying farmers Rs. 160 for each tonne of sugarcane in addition to the Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) fixed by the Union Government.

The association has demanded that the Government should not permit sugar factories to start crushing this year unless they pay farmers the additional Rs. 160 for a tonne of sugarcane supplied in 2007.

The association members such as Tejasvi Patel, Koolenahalli Sathish, Nageshwara Rao and Huchavanahalli Manjunath told presspersons here on Thursday that only 12 of the total 57 sugar factories in the State had implemented the Government Order.

Managements of several factories had resorted to legal battle against the Government in this regard, they said.

The State Government should form a policy on the lines of those being implemented in States such as Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and instruct sugar factories to pay more to growers, taking into consideration the profit earned by them by selling by-products like molasses.

Of the 57 sugar factories 33 were private units, 22 were cooperative units and two were owned by the Government, they said. Of the two Government-owned sugar factories, Mysugar in Mandya had implemented the order while the Mysore Paper Mills Sugar Factory in Bhadravathi had not implemented it.

The growers would launch an indefinite protest in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office from Monday demanding that the factory stop crushing until it paid the additional amount to farmers, he added.