MP to PM: Help cane farmers get their dues

Member of Parliament (MP) from Amroha Kunwar Danish Ali on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take steps to ensure sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh are paid their pending dues by mills, both private and government, as soon as possible.

In a letter to the PM, the BSP MP raised the issue of “huge arrears” that UP sugar mills owe to sugarcane farmers in the state and asserted that the tillers are facing a huge economic crisis.

In the current crushing season (2020-21) which is almost over, the mills owe more than Rs 11,000 crore to the farmers as on May 12, 2021, the letter claimed.

Meanwhile, a senior sugarcane department officer said: “Since 2017, there have been three cane crushing seasons: 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20. All the payments to the farmers of these three seasons were already made. The government has paid a total of ₹1.35 lakh crores since 2017 and of this a total of 10,662 crore were pending dues of the previous two governments (BSP and SP). Now, there is dues of the current crushing season. The season is on and payments are made in a cyclic process.”