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Yamunanagar sugar mill starts cane crushing
The crushing is taking place almost a week before the last season. Last year, the crushing began on November 16 at the Yamunanagar sugar mill, said to be one of the largest in the country.
In a respite to sugarcane farmers in the region, Yamunanagar’s Saraswati Sugar Mills on Tuesday started its crushing operations for 2022-23, earliest after more than two decades.
The crushing is taking place almost a week before the last season. Last year, the crushing began on November 16 at the mill, said to be one of the largest in the country.
Senior vice-president (cane) Dharampal Singh said the mill is the first in Haryana and Punjab states to start early operations in the interest of the farmers.
“During 1996-97, we started early crushing on November 5 and now after 25 years, we started on the auspicious day of Guru Nanak Jayanti. The operations were officially kicked off by chief operations officer SK Sachdeva and other officials, who also honoured three early farmers at the occasion,” Singh added.
The mills have set a target of 175 lakh quintals this year against 162 last year for which 44 purchase centres have been set up. Last season’s payment of ₹587 crore have been paid to the farmers, Singh said.
As per figures, there are 20,500 sugarcane farmers in 672 villages of Yamunanagar district and parts of Ambala and Kurukshetra districts that are attached with the mills.
Sugar mills in Ambala at Naraingarh and Kurukshetra at Shahabad are likely to begin crushing by November 15.
The state government is yet to announce the state approved price (SAP) for sugarcane for this season. Last year, the price was ₹362 per quintal that was increased by ₹12.
In October, the Punjab government had announced a hike of ₹20 per quintal in the SAP, taking it to ₹380 per quintal, while the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is yet to make any decision.
Sources said that there was no consensus reached out at the meetings of Sugarcane Control Board held in the past months amid the panchayati raj elections and demands by the farmer unions to increase the price to ₹400 per quintal.
“The state is known for the highest sugarcane prices and intends to pay more than Punjab and UP. While Punjab has announced a hike already, UP is yet to do so. An increase is likely to be declared by the Agriculture Minister,” an official said.
