Chandigarh, May 16
Punjab Sugar Control Board’s sub-committee, constituted to fix the procurement price for sugarcane, today failed to take a decision in this regard with farmers’ representatives and the sugar industry taking opposite positions.

The issue will now come up at the board meeting likely to be held next week. The number of functional mills in the state has come down from 21 to 14. Most mills face a crisis of raw material during the crushing season with the area under sugarcane declining to 1 lakh hectares over the years.

However, the government is keen to increase the area under cane to 2.5 lakh hectares in the next five years. For this, it would have to offer a remunerative price to farmers to motivate them to switch over to cane.

“With Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, pegging the production cost of cane at Rs 290 per quintal, the procurement price should be fixed at Rs 335 per quintal,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal, one of the members on the sub-committee. As of now, the procurement price is Rs 250 per quintal, the lowest in the country.

Representatives of the sugar industry at the meeting opposed the increase in the cane price on the plea that the industry had already suffered a loss of Rs 177 per quintal.

They said that the production cost of sugar was Rs 3,377 per quintal whereas its selling price in the wholesale market was Rs 3,200 per quintal. So any increase in the cane price would cripple the sugar industry.