Tamil Nadu Sugar Cane Growers Association president Ravindran has demanded that the State government fix purchase price of sugarcane by sugar factories at Rs. 3,500 per tonne taking into account the increasing cost of cultivation and the profits accrued by sugar factories by paying low prices to the raw material purchased from farmers.

Speaking after inaugurating a one-day State-level sugarcane growers’ conference organised by the Karnataka Pranta Raita Sangha here on Tuesday, Mr. Ravindran said the cost of production of one tonne of sugarcane was around Rs. 2,500, but the price fixed by the government was much less than the cost of cultivation.

Accusing the Union government of extending all the help to private sugar factories including an interest-free loan of Rs. 17,000 crore in the past 17 months to settle the dues of farmers, he said the same government had done very little to mitigate the problems of farmers. The government also helped the factories make a clean profit of Rs. 3,000 crore by cancelling the condition of supply of 10 per cent of production of sugar as levy to the government for supplying it through Public Distribution System.

Mr. Ravindran said there was no truth in the claims of sugar factory managements that they were incurring losses. “Private sugar factories account only profit through sale of sugar and do not show the profit accrued by selling by-products such as bagasse, molasses and ethanol,” he pointed out.

He said if private factories continued their adamant attitude, the government should take over these factories and run them on a cooperative basis. Sugar factories should be asked continue to bear the expenses of harvesting and transport, and also share the profit with the raw material-supplying farmers.

He said the Tamil Nadu sugarcane growers were successful in getting an order from the High Court directing sugar factories to share profit with farmers. Around 4 lakh sugarcane growers were paid Rs. 220 crore in profit-sharing by the factories. The Karnataka growers should take a cue from their counterparts in Tamil Nadu and file a case in the High Court and get a favourable order, he said.