Sugar factories in Maharashtra will now have to sign separate agreements with farmers for cane registrations, cane supply and Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) payments to the growers from the next sugar season (SS) of 2020-21, according to a new notification issued by the Maharashtra Sugar Commissioner.
Earlier factories would sign a single agreement with farmers that contained details on the cane variety, amount of cane supply and the FRP to be paid in instalments to farmers. When this issue alarmed the sugar commissionerate, sugar commissioner Saurabh Rao issued a notification which clearly mentions that a separate agreement will have to be signed between the buyer (sugar mill) and the cane seller (farmer).
According to the notice, whenever a producer of the sweetener purchases any sugarcane from a grower of cane or from a sugarcane growers society, the producer shall unless there is an agreement in writing to the contrary between the parties pay within 14 days from the date of delivery of the sugarcane to the seller or tender to him the price of the cane sold at the rate agreed to between the producer and the sugarcane grower or the sugarcane growers cooperative society. Or, at the rate that may have been fixed at the gate of the factory or the cane collection centre.
In the 2018-19 SS, several factories had signed ambiguous agreements with farmers and stated that cane arrear payments would be made to farmers as the funds flowed into the factory account. The Maharashtra State Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation has taken up this issue and decided to frame a model draft for factories pertaining to the provisions of the Cane Control Act of 1966.
Sanjay Khatal, managing director of the federation, said the draft would contain details on the standard benchmark payments of FRP amounting to 10% at the start of the year to farmers.