A HANDFUL of sugar mills in Maharashtra have approached the Bombay High Court against the decision of the state sugar commissioner Dr Vipin Sharma to suspend their crushing licence for their failure to clear cane arrears of the last season. Shivajirao Nagavade Patil, president of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation, said they plan to meet Minister for Cooperation Chandrakant Patil to discuss various vexing issues with him soon. Last week, Sharma had temporarily suspended the licences of 14 mills for their failure to pay growers the fair and remunerative price (FRP) for the crushing season of 2014-15.
Mills managed by political bigwigs such as Leader of Opposition Radhakrushna Vikhe Patil, former revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat and former tribal development minister Madhukar Pichad were in the list.
Sources in the sugar commissionerate said that post the decisions, four mills have cleared their dues while many have started paying part of their dues. The unpaid dues for the last season, as of Monday, stood at Rs 295 crore. Mills are fined Rs 500 per tonne of cane crushed in case of them continuing operations without a crushing licence.
Patil said that around four to five mills have approached the Mumbai High Court for quashing of the orders. “We are collecting mill-wise details of the same,” he said. Meanwhile, he also said that millers in the state are being forced to pay more as the commissionerate officials are “rounding off the recovery percentage of the mills”. Recovery is the percentage of sugar produced to cane crushed and is used to calculate the FRP to farmers.
“Of late, the commissionerate officials are rounding off the recovery percentage to the next nearest decimal. Based on such rounding off, mills are being sent notices to cough up more money. In a scenario of low uptake such practises are bad for trade,” he said. Millers have decided to meet the minister next week to discuss the various issues faced by them.
The recent directions of SEBI to stop forward trading in sugar and other agro commodities have not had any effect on the sugar trade in the state.
Patil said that of late, the prices of sugar have seen a dip which is worrisome for the trade.