Yogi’s budget fails to fulfil promise of modernizing sugar co-op mills

Despite making tall poll promises of modernizing sugar mills with a fund of Rs 5000 crore, the Yogi govt presented a budget which has allocated a mere Rs 380 crore for modernizing the obsolete machinery of sugar co-op mills in the state.

At this rate, in its five years term, the govt would end up only allocating Rs 1700 crore for the sugar co-op mills upgradation, a far cry from the original plan.

On the plus side, the Uttar Pradesh government has made a provision of Rs 300 crore under the ‘Interest Grant’ scheme for providing loans to the farmers at subsidized rates through cooperatives.

The announcement was made by the State Finance Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna while presenting the Yogi Adityanath’s second term government’s maiden budget on Thursday at State Assembly.

In the budget, the state government has made a provision of 1340 crores for the sugarcane development department (sugar industry). The maximum share of this has been earmarked for the payment of cane price not made by cooperative sugar mills so far.

An arrangement of 1,000 crore rupees has been made for the payment of arrears of sugarcane to the farmers of UP cooperative sugar mills. Rs 380 crore is proposed for the renovation and modernization of sugar mills.

Besides, Rs 150 crore has been proposed for the advanced storage of chemical fertilizers. In 2021-22, 1.86 lakh liters of milk per day were sold through the 8615 active milk cooperatives in the state in the financial year 2021-2022.

Readers would recall that in its manifesto presented during the UP elections, BJP announced a Rs 5,000 crore scheme for modernizing sugar mills.

The Uttar Pradesh government has proposed a whopping Rs 650 crore budget for farmers. They will also be given 60.20 lakh quintal seeds.

The Yogi-led government has presented a Rs 6,15,518.97 crore budget for the financial year 2022-23, which includes a provision of Rs 39,181.10 crore for the new schemes.

The budget proposes free irrigation facilities to farmers through 34,307 government tube-wells and 252 minor branch canals as well as Rs 1000 crore under the Mukhya Mantri Laghu Sinchai Yojana to address irrigation related issues of the state.

The budget also proposes accidental insurance of Rs 650 crore for farmers under the Mukhya Mantri Krishak Durghatana Kalyan Yojana.