Pune/Kolhapur: Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana president Raju Shetti on Thursday intensified his agitation for higher sugar and ethanol prices, urging cooperative sugar factories to suspend cane crushing operations, while National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories’ president Harshvardhan Patil opposed his stand.Shetti has been demanding payment of Rs5,000 per tonne of sugar cane, which, he said, would be feasible only if the minimum selling price (MSP) of sugar was raised to Rs50 per kg and the ethanol procurement price was fixed at Rs70 per litre. Shetti led an agitation by blocking the Mumbai-Bangalore national highway for 31 hours on Wednesday.The farmers’ activist intensified his agitation on Thursday when he visited cooperative sugar mills — Krishna in Karad, Kranti in Kundal, Sonhira in Kadegaon and Hutatma near Ashta — and led protests outside their gates. The factories are run by members of both BJP and Congress.Addressing mill authorities, Shetti said sugar factories had begun crushing under govt pressure despite knowing that processing immature cane caused losses to both farmers and mills. “The mills did not speak up when the government kept the sugar MSP unchanged. We want the mills to keep crushing suspended until a decision is made,” Shetti said.Mill officials said cane cutters from drought-hit Marathwada had already arrived for the season and would be adversely affected if harvesting and crushing were halted. Shetti said harvested cane could still be brought to factories to avoid losses for farmers, but maintained that crushing operations should stop at midnight on Thursday.NFCSF president and senior Congress member Patil said while he supported Shetti’s demands, he was not in favour of delaying the crushing season. He said, “The state is facing serious drought conditions and the standing sugar cane crop in the farm is withering because of lack of water. If it is not harvested and given to factories for crushing, farmers will face losses.”Patil said, “The sugar cane cutters come from Marathwada. It is among the worst drought-affected regions. If they are not allowed to cut the crop, they will lose money. It will add to their problems arising because of drought.”The NFCSF chief supported Shetti’s demand for a higher MSP, though. “It has been more than eight years that the MSP has not been raised. NFCSF, along with other organisations, including Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI), have written to the Centre, requesting to raise the MSP for sugar. We are hoping that the Centre will take a positive decision on the demand in the next few days,” Patil said.Centre has constituted a committee headed by agricultural economist Ramesh Chand to examine the demands of representatives of sugar cane-growing states.
