Farmers Anger Simmering in UP, Cane Dues are Record High at Rs 2200 Crore  

Forty eight years old Rambeer Singh is a farmer living on the rural outskirts of Meerut. Singh owns an acre of farm land and comes in the category of small farmers. He produced sugarcane on half of his farm land and sold the cane worth Rs. 2.8 lakh to the local sugar mill till January 20. All he has got from the sugar mills was just Rs.70,000 in October. With 75 % of his total earning still with the sugar mill owners, Singh is a troubled and angry man. But he is not the only one. Over 35 lakh farmers in Uttar Pradesh are going through the same feeling of anger and sadness.

“At the time of the State Assembly elections, the BJP had sold us a dream of providing us the cane dues in just two weeks. But the situation on the ground is worse than ever. The Yogi Adityanath government has been a complete failure in taking care of farmers and their problems like getting them the cane dues on time. The cane payment is three months late. I have not gotten the money for the cane I sold during November, December and January till now,” Singh told on call to Newsclick. 

“I do not understand why the BJP does not understand that we have got bills to pay, school fees to pay, medical bills to take care of. It has been three months and farmers have not gotten any money. After all we do not get salary every month,” Singh added with his voice betraying a great deal of anger and helplessness.

Almost three months have passed since the crushing season started but, according to figures provided by the Uttar Pradesh Sugar Mill Association (UPSMA), the mill owners are yet to pay about Rs. 2200 crore to the farmers of the State. This stands just opposite to the political rhetoric of the ruling BJP which had promised to ensure that the farmers get the cane dues maximum within two weeks of the beginning of the crushing season.

It is important to mention here that the amount of money the sugar mills owe to the farmers is expected to go higher than the current figure of Rs. 2200 crore as the crushing season concludes in coming months.

Deepak Guptara, the secretary of UPSMA, told Newsclick that due to the record production of sugar, the sugar prices went disturbingly low. “The rate at which sugar was sold when the cane crushing season started in October end was Rs. 3700/quintal. Right now, the rate is Rs. 3160, almost 20 per cent lower than the initial rate of sugar. I must mention that the production cost is Rs. 3450/quintal which means that we are bearing a loss of at least Rs. 290/quintal,” Guptara said.

When asked why the mill owners are yet to pay as high as Rs. 2200 to the farmers, he said, “The record production and the sugar rates going down affected the ability of the mills to pay. Of course, there are some sugar mills which are prompt in paying and there are some which have defaulted. But my point is that over all the sugar industry is not in a great shape due to no cap in production by the farmers. And the figure of Rs. 2200 crore, will certainly increase as days pass because of the loss incurred in the sugar production.”  

Suresh Rana, the Minister for Sugarcane Development in Yogi Adityanath Cabinet, told NewsClick that the government will ensure that the "cane dues of Rs. 2200 gets paid as soon as possible."

Farmers like Rambeer Singh, however, have other complaints as well. He and his fellow farmers friends did not benefit from the farm loan waiver of Rs. 36359 crore announced by the chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

So he told Newsclick that farmers in different districts of western Uttar Pradesh, were holding protests under the banner of various political groups.

Prof. Sudhir Panwar, a former member of UP planning commission who hails from Shamli district, told Newsclick that the Yogi government had been a disaster in ensuring that the farmer of the State gets the worth of the cane he sells to the sugar mill. “Let alone the BJP promise of making the mills pay back to the farmers in two weeks, the government is three months late. Cane arrears of more than Rs. 2200 is due and the farmers are angry at the bundle of lies and public relation propaganda that the Yogi government peddles on social media,” Panwar, also a faculty at Lucknow University, said.

He reminded that Yogi government that it had promised not only timely payment of cane dues but also about constituting Chaudhary Charan Singh Cane Stabilising Fund to ensure that there remains a corpus of money for the farmers to get the cane dues even if there is a crisis in the sugarcane industry.

“Right now farmers are not even getting dues on time. And the strange thing is that the Yogi government has stopped talking about the Chaudhary Charan Singh Cane Stabilising Funds,” added Prof.  Panwar.

“The farmers of the State are in extreme distress and they deserve a better deal than getting crushed under the very tractor they bought by their own hard-earned money. If their grievance is not taken care of soon, then their plight may turn into a big tragedy and will only result in more suicides,” he added.