With the Centre accepting sugarcane farmers’ objections to the “fair and remunerative price” (FRP) regime, the onus has now shifted on Uttar Pradesh.

Farmers’ organisations say they will ask the state government to revise the state advisory price (SAP) of sugarcane to Rs 280 per quintal.

The farmers, who held a protest in Delhi on Thursday, had two demands.

The first was the withdrawal of the provision that the state government will have to pay the difference if it fixed an SAP higher than the fair and remunerative price.

They feared that it would put an end to the state’s announcing its own SAP because it could not afford to pay the difference.

Two, the farmers wanted a price of Rs 280 per quintal, arguing that the SAP announced by the UP government was unremunerative.

The SAP in UP varies from Rs 165 to Rs 170 per quintal, depending on the quality of sugarcane. Private sugar mills, at the intervention of the UP government, have agreed to pay an additional Rs 15 per quintal as incentive to the farmers.

While announcing the SAP for the current cane crushing season in October, Chief Minister Mayawati had claimed that the hike of Rs 25 per quintal was historic in the state and much more than what the neighbouring Haryana and Punjab were paying.

But the fact is that Haryana pays Rs 211 per quintal, while in Punjab, the price is Rs 190 per quintal.

“The FRP ordinance did not curtail the UP government’s powers to determine and announce the state advisory price, so the ball was always in the state government’s court. It should revise the SAP to Rs 280 per quintal,” said VM Singh, Congress leader from Pilibhit, who is among those spearheading the agitation for a higher price. Reiterating the demand of Rs 280 per quintal, Srikant Singh, president of the Association of Chairmen of UP Cane Cooperative Societies, said: “We will not supply cane to sugar mills until our demand is met.” Under the UP Sugarcane Purchase (Control) Order, mills have to source cane only through cooperative societies. Interestingly, the UP government had taken exception to the Centre’s move to adopt the FRP regime and had extended its tacit support to the farmers’ agitation. In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mayawati had termed FRP ordinance as a “blatantly anti-farmer move” and alleged that the Centre had ignored the interest of over 40 lakh cane growers of the state.

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