Chandigarh, August 20
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab Kisan Wing state president and MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan has categorically rejected the modest hike in sugarcane prices by the state government after four-and-a-half-years; accusing it of betraying the ‘annadatas’ like the Narendra Modi government. In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Friday, Kultar Singh Sandhwan said, “The ruling Congress came too late for the sugarcane cultivators, but still did not come right. The mere Rs 15 per quintal hike in sugarcane prices (SAP) announced by the state government is a disappointing farmer-killing move as the previous hike was only Rs 10 per quintal in 2017-18.”
Sandhwan said with a slight increase of Rs 15, the procurement price of sugarcane had gone up by only 5 percent in the last five years, but the production cost of sugarcane had gone up by over 30 percent per acre. The cost which was Rs 30,000 per acre in 2017 has now increased to Rs 40,000-42,000 per acre. He alleged like the Modi government, the Punjab government was discarding the price suggested by the experts of the Agricultural University (PAU) under the pressure of a few business houses. The neighboring state of Haryana is currently paying Rs 358 per quintal, which is Rs 30-35 per quintal more than Punjab, where the production cost is almost the same, he said.
“Not only this, out of four states falling under the same agricultural zone, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, the Punjab government is giving the lowest prices to its sugarcane farmers. The SAP that the Punjab government has now announced, Haryana government used to pay these prices seven years ago,” said Sandhwan. He alleged that the Punjab government was not of the farmers but of its MLAs and the private sugar mill mafia. Sandhwan said by including Congress MLA Rana Gurjit Singh in the sugarcane development group and then making it part of the pricing meeting, the ruling Congress itself has sealed such allegations. He asked how a private mill owner who is always looking for his own profit can talk about the rights of the farmers.
Kultar Singh Sandhwan further said that out of 16 sugarcane mills in Punjab, 9 are cooperative and 7 are private. He said due to the anti-farmer policies of the SAD-BJP and the Congress, the condition of cooperative mills has deteriorated and capacity has been reduced due to which today; the private mills have a monopoly on 70 per cent sugarcane. “This bitter fact is a major setback of the Minister for Cooperatives, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who has completely failed to improve the condition of Cooperative Sugar Mills or provide any assistance to the farmers from the Cooperative Department during the last four-and-a-half years. For this incompetence, minister Randhawa should morally resign,” he said.
According to Sandhwan, if the Ministry of Cooperatives and Cooperative Sugar Mills worked honestly and firmly for sugarcane growers; not only would the area under sugarcane increase, but the private sugar mill mafia in the state would not be able to monopolize. He directly blamed the Congress government for the long standing arrears of sugarcane, stating that as per the Sugarcane Control Board-1966, if a mill does not pay within 15 days, the farmer is entitled to 15 per cent interest, but there is a backlog of Rs 160 crore out of which Rs 106 crore is on the private mills of the Akalis, Congress and other big political leaders.
The AAP leader demanded that the government should pay all the dues of the farmers from the cooperatives and private mills before the new season. Sandhwan said due to constant harassment of the farmers, the area under sugarcane in Punjab has been steadily declining which is a major setback for the agricultural diversification drive.
