Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh has asked the Centre to take immediate steps to put an end to the sugarcane crisis.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr. Singh accused the UPA-II government of following “anti-farmer” policies and being “insensitive” to the farming community, which in turn has resulted in the crisis.

“The Central government needs to act fast and intervene to provide necessary relief to farmers and ensure that sugar mills start crushing and farmers are paid their dues of previous years,” Mr. Singh said in the letter.

He demanded that three major sugarcane growing States, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, should be asked to pay compensation to farmers who have been protesting for the past one month.

Citing the alleged suicide of a farmer in Lakhimpur Kheri, Mr. Singh said: “The Uttar Pradesh government has compounded the problems by not clearing the previous years’ overdue payments worth Rs. 2,300 crore. Sugarcane crop is still standing in the fields and farmers cannot sow Rabi crops, as crushing is yet to begin in more than 60 sugar mills of Uttar Pradesh.”

Despite the Centre setting up a three-member committee, Mr. Singh said, little was done to alleviate the problems being faced by sugarcane farmers in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

He said though the UPA-II government claimed to have increased the minimum support price (MSP), farmers were yet to benefit. “The MSP has increased nominally but the cost of production has increased substantially. The result is that the MSP even does not cover the cost of production.”

On the issue of peace clause that will be negotiated at WTO meet in Bali, he said: “The proposed peace clause would exempt subsidies in excess of 10 per cent of limit for a period of just four years. The total subsidy under the Food Security Act in India may exceed the 10 per cent limit in the very first year.”

The promise of food security, he said, would eventually “come to a naught” if the clause was acceded to.