Sarlahi farmers yet to be released sugarcane subsidy

By Janarjan Khatri,Sarlahi, Nov. 9: Sugarcane farmers in Sarlahi have not received the grant amount for the sugarcane they supplied to the sugarcane mills last year.

In the Fiscal Year 2022/023, the price of sugarcane was set at Rs. 610 per quintal. It was decided that the mill would provide Rs. 540 and the government would provide the remaining Rs. 70. 

Last year, Indushankar, Mahalaxmi and Annapurna mills of the district crushed 4,179,324.99 quintals of sugarcane provided by 17,030 farmers. 

According to the quantity of the sugarcane provided to the mills, the farmers need to receive Rs. 293 million. However, only Rs. 90 million was released to the Office of the Controller of Treasury and Accounts in Malangawa few weeks ago. 

Nirmal Neupane, chief treasury controller in Sarlahi, said that the grant could not be distributed to the farmers because they had not received full grant amount. He said that they had made multiple requests to the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance regarding the full allocation of the grant. 

He said, "We are fully prepared for the grant distribution. If we had received the money by Monday we would have distributed it before Tihar. But now, it looks like we might not be able to make payments before Tihar even if the grants were to be released anytime soon."

Earlier, farmers in Sarlahi had protested demanding for payment before Dashain. At the time, the local administrative had assured that they would make payments before Tihar.

Kapil Muni Mainali, president of the Federation of Sugarcane Producers Association, said that the government had ignored voices of sugarcane farmers. Due to the delay in the payments, the farmers were unable to celebrate major festivals using their own money. 

He said the Nepal Government needed to release Rs. 1.32 billion for the sugarcane grant but had only released Rs. 800 million. Because of the limited budget allocation farmers of four districts consisting of Sarlahi, Rautahat, Nawalparasi and Kanchanpur had not received the grant.