By IANS
Lucknow : Burdened with arrears of more than Rs.15 billion to be paid to sugarcane farmers, the Uttar Pradesh government Wednesday decided to maintain last year’s procurement price for the forthcoming sugarcane crushing season.
Making an announcement at a press conference here, Chief Minister Mayawati said, “For the ordinary variety of sugarcane, the price has been fixed at Rs.125 per quintal, while it was Rs.122 and Rs.120 for the two other varieties.”
“When I took over as chief minister five months ago, the cane dues were of the order of Rs.3,005 crore (Rs.30.05 billion). However, with much effort we have managed to clear about 50 percent of the arrears,” she said.
“I am now writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to release an interest-free loan of Rs.1,875 crore (Rs.18.75 billion) so that we could clear the remaining pending dues on sugar mills in the public and cooperative sectors,” she said.
As for the pending dues of private sugar mills, she said, “We have taken stern action against defaulters and 64 private-owned mills were already facing proceedings for recovery of dues as arrears of land revenue.”
Mayawati blamed previous governments and their policies for the mounting of the arrears over the years.