Ahead of the 2020-21 sugarcane crushing season, the Sugar Commissioner of Maharashtra has decided to color code the mills on the basis of their payment history. Sugar Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said the move would serve as a ready guide for farmers to decide where to sell their sugarcane.
As per the rules, it is mandatory for the mills to pay the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) declared by the government to the farmers within 14 days of selling the sugarcane. The Sugarcane Control Order, 1966 provides for crackdown on defaulting mills, but action, including recovery of arrears, takes time to materialise.
For this, the sugar commissioners are required to first declare the mill as defective, after which the district collectors auction the sugar stock of the mill to recover the dues.
Given the fact that sugarcane remains in the field for more than a year, delay in payment is a major concern for farmers, experts said. He said that this delay hurts the economy of the farmers in terms of repayment of crop loans etc. He said that for farmers, the only way to know the payment behavior of the mills is through mouth-to-mouth.
Now, based on the past payment behavior of the mills, Gaikwad’s office has colored them as red, yellow and green. Mills which have been marked as green have paid their FRP on time, yellow and red have seen delays.
The red tagged mills had significantly delayed their payments and thus had seen action by the Sugar Commissioner in the past.
Talking to Gaikwad Indian ExpressSaid that the color coding of the mills would help the farmers to know the payment behavior of the mills before deciding to sell their sugarcane.
While farmers, who are shareholders of cooperative mills, are obliged to sell a portion of their sugarcane to the mills, there is no such compulsion for private mills. But now, the defaulting mills will find it difficult to raise funds to pay their farmers promptly.
53 mills have been identified in the chart, against which action has been taken. “This will be the first time our office has taken such action,” he said.
Gaikwad’s office will share this chart with farmers on their WhatsApp numbers by the end of the week.
There are about 40 lakh sugarcane growers in Maharashtra and efforts will be made to ensure that all of them get this table through mass transfer. “We hope this will help farmers to take an informed decision about their crop,” he said.
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