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In order to tide over acute labour shortage, the Maharashtra government will give subsidy to the cooperative sugar mills and farmers from this fiscal for purchase of sugarcane harvesters.
By 2014, about 450 harvesters costing over Rs 450 crore will be acquired in the State.
The State government has already approached the Centre with a Rs 100-crore subsidy plan. However, under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana of the Union Ministry of Agriculture, about Rs 50 crore have been sanctioned.
The sugarcane harvester is a large mobile machine weighing about eight tonnes. It can cut about 120 tonnes of sugarcane in 16 hours. It costs about Rs 265 to cut a tonne of sugarcane while manual cost is about Rs 322.
In Maharashtra, eight companies are offering imported and indigenously developed harvesters. In a sugar season of about 160 days, one harvester can cut 12,000 tonnes of sugarcane.
Mr Rajgopal Deora, Maharashtra's Secretary for Cooperation, told Business Line that the cane harvesters cost about Rs 1 crore. Therefore, the State government has decided to give Rs 50 lakh as subsidy.
The rest of the money should be raised by cooperative sugar factories and individual farmers. “For the machines, the normal pay back is about eight years but due to the subsidy, the payback time has been halved,” he said.
Mr Deora said that in 2006, about 10 lakh labourers were available but today their number has dwindled to about five lakh. Cutting sugarcane is a very strenuous task. Therefore, not many labourers opt for it. Children of the labourers, who traditionally cut sugarcane, are now getting educated and are moving on to other jobs, he said.
Mr Gaurav Sood, Deputy General Manager (Sales and Marketing), with New Holland Fiat (India) said that since last year there has been a tremendous response from the market in Maharashtra. The company has already received orders for 100 harvesters. The farmers and cooperative mills have realised that machines can help them save a lot of time and money, he said.
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