Ever since Amit Shah has taken over as the co-op ministry, the strongman of sugar co-ops in Maharashtra Sharad Pawar has been unusually active. He first met the Prime Minister and now on Tuesday met Shah along with a delegation raising the problems being faced by the co-op sugar sector.
National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Chairman Jaiprakash Dandegaonkar and its MD Prakash Naiknavare formed part of the delegation.
“Firstly, I congratulated Shri Amit Shah on being appointed as the first Co-operation Minister of India. During the meeting, we discussed the current sugar scenario of the country and problems occurring due to excessive sugar production”, said Pawar describing the purpose of his visit to put an end to the media putting wrong interpretations on things.
“We brought to his notice the two most urgent but intractable issues like MSP & permissions to set up Ethanol manufacturing units within the premises of sugar mills. We hope that these issues would be favourably considered & resolved at the earliest by the Hon’ble Co-operation Minister”, he tweeted.
Titled “URGENT ISSUES CONFRONTING THE COOPERATIVE SUGAR SECTOR”, the letter submitted to the Co-op Minister reads “Though there are numerous issues confronting the sugar sector, we are flagging only two most emergent & severe issues for your kind attention & resolving.
The letter talks of MSP for sugar and says GOI, in 2018 had taken a historical decision of notifying sugar MSP & linking it’s revision with sugarcane price [FRP]. In 2019, MSP was rightly & automatically raised from Rs. 29/kg to Rs. 31/ kg. in line with upward revision in FRP. But, since the last 2 ½ years, the MSP has not been revised despite a rise in FRP. We insist that Sugar MSP should invariably be linked with sugarcane FRP. The current Average production cost of sugar is in the vicinity of Rs 36 / kg.
The recommendation of Revenue Sharing Formula by the High Power Committee headed by Dr. C. Rangarajan has been accepted by GOI according to which if 70% & 75% of revenue is to be paid as cane price, the sugar MSP logically cannot be below Rs. 37.50 / kg.
Upward revision in MSP will immediately raise the valuation of sugar stock in the godowns, helping cash liquidity of ailing sugar mills, which will help them clear sugarcane arrears of farmers. Pawar says MSP revision does not put any financial burden on GOI.
It bears recall that the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd. [NFCSF] is the apex federal body representing all the 259 cooperative sugar mills & all the 9 State cooperative sugar federations across India. NFCSF represents almost 2.5 crore sugarcane growers.