Sugar mills owed nearly Rs 14,000 crore to sugarcane farmers at the end of January in the ongoing marketing season, the government said today.
Sugar marketing year runs from October to September.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution C R Chaudhary informed that cane price arrear stood at Rs 13,931.61 crore as on January 31 in the current 2017-18 marketing season. Uttar Pradesh millers owed maximum at Rs 5,552.76 crore, followed by mills in Karnataka at 2,713.65 crore and Maharashtra at Rs 2,636.03 crore.
The arrears for 2016-17 stood at Rs 902.90 crore and earlier years at Rs 1,686.12 crore.
Total cane arrears as on January 31, 2018 stood at Rs 16,520.63 crore, of which UP mills accounted for 6,078.51 crore.
“Payment of sugarcane dues to farmers in an ongoing process. The Sugarcane (Control) Order 1966 stipulates payment of cane price within 14 days of supply, failing which interest at the rate of 15 per cent per annum on amount due for the delayed period beyond 14 days is payable,” the minister said.
The power to enforce this provision is vested with the state governments, he added.
“The state governments have issued notices to all the defaulting sugar mills for clearing the balance cane price dues. State governments of UP, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have reported to have issued recovery certificates also to defaulting sugar mills,” Chaudhary said.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.