Chandigarh, December 17
When it comes to fixing the sugarcane prices, the ‘pro-farmer’ Hooda Government seems to have given a raw deal to sugarcane growers.

Even as neighbouring states such as Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are offering much higher prices for sugarcane, the farmers in Haryana seem to have been left to fend for themselves.

While the maximum price for sugarcane in Uttarakhand is Rs 295 per quintal, Haryana has fixed a price of Rs 250 per quintal. In UP the price is much higher at Rs 290 per quintal.

“The farmers would not take this injustice lying down. A ‘kisan mahapanchayat’ will be held at Radaur in Yamunanagar district on December 20 to announce an agitational programme,” Gurnam Singh, president of the Haryana unit of the BKU, told The Tribune here today.

It may be recalled that Haryana offers prices of Rs 250, 240 and Rs 235 per quintal for different varieties of sugarcane.This was in sharp contrast to UP where the farmers are paid Rs 275, Rs 280 and Rs 290 per quintal for different varieties. The rates in Uttarakhand are Rs 285 and Rs 295 per quintal.

Gurnam Singh claimed that even according to estimates of the State Agriculture Department, the farmer had to spend Rs 236 for producing one quintal of sugarcane. If the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee and the working group of Chief Ministers, of which Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was the chairman, were taken into consideration the farmer had to be paid 50 per cent more than the input costs. By this logic, the farmer should have been paid Rs 354 per quintal, the BKU chief asserted.

Sugarcane prices

* Uttarakhand Rs 295 per quintal

* Uttar Pradesh Rs 290 per quintal

* Haryana Rs 250 per quintal