Sarlahi farmers demand increase in sugarcane price

By Janarjan Khatri,Sarlahi, Dec. 19: Even a day after Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ instructed authorities to release Rs. 520 million to pay the subsidy dues to the sugarcane farmers, the farmers in Sarlahi district continued their protest on Monday by laying on the East-West Highway.

The agitating sugarcane farmers have been demanding that the price of sugarcane be fixed based on the increased price of sugar and the cost of sugarcane production.

The farmers protested by sleeping along the East-West Highway in Harion.

In the initiative of Prime Minister ‘Prachanda’, a meeting of the ministers and secretaries of various ministries held in Baluwatar, Kathmandu on Sunday decided to take the initiative for immediate payment of Rs. 520 million of the subsidy dues to the sugarcane farmers.

Kapil Muni Mainali, president of the Federation of Sugarcane Producers’ Association, said that they would continue their agitation until the subsidy amount was deposited in the farmers’ account and the support price for this year was fixed. At a time when sugarcane has to be harvested and sold to the sugar industries, the farmers have taken to the streets demanding that the subsidy amount of last year should be provided and the price of sugarcane be fixed.

As the farmers did not supply sugarcane, the Indushankar Sugar Industry in Harion, Sarlahi, and Everest Sugar Industry in Ramnagar, Mahottari, have not yet started sugarcane crushing.

The farmers have demanded that the sugarcane price should be fixed at Rs. 750 per quintal this year.

Last year the price of sugarcane was fixed at Rs. 610 per quintal. Out of it, the government had decided to provide Rs. 70 per quintal as a subsidy.

As the Ministry of Finance did not release the full amount of the subsidy, the sugarcane farmers in Sarlahi received only 30 per cent of the subsidy for the sugarcane they sold last year.

District Treasury Controller Office, Sarlahi, had sent the amount released by the ministry to each farmer’s bank account at the rate of 30 per cent before the Tihar festival this year.

The District Treasury Controller Office, Sarlahi, had received only Rs. 91 million of Rs. 292 million that should be disbursed as a subsidy to 17,030 farmers who had sold sugarcane to three sugar mills- Indushankar, Mahalaxmi and Annapurna in Sarlahi last year.

After holding a meeting under the chairmanship of the Chief District Officer, it was decided to distribute the amount received from the Ministry to the farmers at the rate of 30 per cent.

Chief of District Treasury Controller Office, Sarlahi, Nirmal Neupane said that the ministry still has to release dues amount of Rs. 201 million. Mainali said that the sugarcane farmers of Nawalparasi and Kanchanpur had not yet received the last year’s subsidy.

Rajkumar Upreti, President of Millgate Sugarcane Producers Committee, Sarlahi, warned of intensifying the present movement if their demands were not met. He accused the government of forwarding the plan of releasing Rs. 520 million to foil the farmers’ movements and confuse the framers as in previous years. 

He said that the agitation would not be called off until the price of sugarcane was fixed according to the demand 

of the farmers along with the subsidy. Upreti said that although the government has started discussing the issue of subsidy, it has not shown interest in fixing the price of the sugarcane for this year. 

The agitating sugarcane farmers have said that they will let the sugarcane plants dry in the field, but they will not accept the price set unilaterally by the government under the influence of the industrialists.