Govt urged to fulfill Poll Promise in fixing Sugarcane price

TN small and marginal farmers association president KR Sudantirarasu has appealed to the DMK government to fulfill the poll promise of fixing Rs 4000 per ton as sugarcane procurement price due to steep rise in production cost including labour, cane cutting and transportation costs.

He said Tamil Nadu government announced an incentive of Rs 195 per tonne to sugarcane farmers in the agriculture budget. With this, the procurement price of sugarcane per ton in Tamil Nadu is Rs 2,950, Uttar Pradesh Rs 3,500 and in Chhattisgarh Rs 3,550. The CM MK Stalin announced in his election manifesto that the price of sugarcane will be fixed at Rs 4000 per tonne for ryots. But, without giving it, very low price is given in Tamil Nadu causing much disappointment to ryots.

In TN, each farmer can sell sugarcane only to one monopoly sugarcane mill in his area as per the cane registration area norm  within 40 Km. Of Rs 2,950, ryots get Rs 2000 after spending cane cutting wages and that too in a year. From one ton of sugarcane, the mills get 95Kg's of sugar and 21.75 Kg of ethanol through molasses. So, the following is the income to the mill from one tonne of sugarcane. Sugar Rs 3,800. Ethanol Rs 6000 Total Rs 9,800. Producing paper and electricity from the bagasse is separate income.  

Distillers buy this ethanol and convert it into alcohol and sell it. In normal IMFL, only 45.5% alcohol is existed and the rest is water and other ingredients. A Quarter 250ML contains only 80-100ML of alcohol. So, from one ton of sugarcane 21.75 to 84 liters of alcohol is produced.  It is converted into at least 200 quarters of IMFL and sold. So, the alcohol produced in  one tonne of cane is sold for over Rs 40,000 by TN Government.

It does not include tax. Now, TN government's main source of income is TASMAC liquor sales and it is over Rs 30000 cr per year. It is the sugarcane farmers  who provide the raw materials for producing liquor. It means, the government is run by the sugarcane farmers themselves. Thus, Tamil Nadu earns more than 30,000 crores per year from the sale of alcohol. So, the CM should come forward to fulfill his poll promise by hiking cane price to Rs 4000 per ton, he pleaded