In order to curb the simmering discontent among cane farmers who have still not been paid last season’s cane dues, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to help the sugar mills which were not able to get the soft loan provided by the state government to pay off the farmers’ dues. The government has given them another opportunity by extending the period of the scheme by 15 days to February 26.
Speaking to FE, an official of the cane department said that these sugar mills had already applied for the soft loan but the same could not be processed within the said period in November due to certain reasons, the government has decided to give them another opportunity by extending the period of the scheme by 15 days.
It may be mentioned that the state government had, in November last year, approved a soft loan scheme to provide financial assistance to the private sugar mills of the state to ensure that they are able to pay off the balance cane dues of 2017-18 season to the cane farmers.
In this scheme, the private sugar mills of the state were given loans for the payment of balance cane dues through nationalised, scheduled commercial banks and cooperative banks of Uttar Pradesh, so that the sugar mills may utilise the amount of loan to ensure 100% payment of balance cane dues of crushing season 2017-18.
But approximately a dozen mills were still left out of the scheme, leading to almost `1,000 crore unpaid dues of last year. The notable among those mills are Modi group, Rana group, Wave group, Bajaj group, Simbaoli group and Shamli sugar mill. Interestingly, Bajaj group mills and Simbaoli group mills would still not be eligible for the scheme.
“The time limit extension of the scheme would help several private sugar mills of the state in getting loan for paying their outstanding cane dues of crushing season 2017-18. Lakhs of sugar cane farmers of the state belonging to Moradabad, Bijnore, Shamli, Baghpat and Bulandshahr districts would benefit from this," cane minister Suresh Rana said.