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The Government has released around ₹15,948 crore to sugar mills in various schemes in five years, according to a reply in Rajya Sabha on Friday. Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, said that the Centre has announced various schemes in the last five years to improve liquidity of the sugar mills enabling them to clear cane price dues of farmers.
These schemes included creation and maintenance of buffer stock of 30 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar with effect from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019, and the scheme for defraying expenditure towards internal transport, freight, handling and other charges on export of sugar season 2018-19.
There was a scheme for providing assistance to sugar mills for expenses on marketing costs, including handling, upgrading and other processing costs and internal transport and freight charges for sugar seasons 2020-21, 2019-20 and 2018-19. There was also assistance to sugar mills season 2019-20 to facilitate export of sugar. “Under these schemes, a sum of about ₹15,948 crore has been released to various sugar mills of the country in last five financial years, including the current fiscal till January 31,” she said.
Coffee
To a separate question on coffee production, Anupriya Patel said Karnataka produced 2.48 lt of coffee on an area of 2.46 lakh hectares (lh) during 2022-23. This was followed by Kerala at 72,425 tonnes on area of 85,957 hectares, and Tamil Nadu at 18,700 tonnes on an area of 35,685 hectares. Export of coffee and coffee products in value terms stood at $1,146 million during 2022-23, and $1,016 million during 2021-22.
Agri GVA
Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha was informed that Gross Value Added (GVA) of agriculture and allied sector has been growing at a rate of 4.4 per cent per annum over the last eight years. Arjun Munda, Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, told Rajya Sabha that the Government has adopted and implemented several policies, reforms, developmental programmes and schemes for achieving higher incomes for the farmers directly or indirectly.
In addition to this, the Government has substantially enhanced the budget allocation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare from ₹27,662.67 crore during 2013-14 BE to ₹1,25,035.79 crore during 2023-24 BE.
As a result, GVA of agriculture and allied sector has been growing at a rate of 4.4 per cent per annum over the last eight years, he said.
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