Sugar industry in Maharashtra flags concern as individual awards for record tonnage find no eligible candidates

The VSI’s yearly OoshBhushan awards are bestowed connected idiosyncratic farmers arsenic good arsenic sweetener mills for method and fiscal efficiency. Individual farmers suffice for the awards based connected their tonnage per acre (total value of nutrient per acre).

However, connected Thursday, the institute announced that nary husbandman met the eligibility criteria for the awards which are fixed division-wise for Pre-seasonal, Suru and Ratoon cane. While the archetypal 2 are works cane grown from seedlings, the 3rd 1 is grown from the stubble of an already harvested crop.

On Thursday, nary awards were fixed for immoderate of the categories successful the North West Division. No 1 cleared the prime criteria acceptable by VSI for the Suru and Pre-seasonal awards for the Middle Division. In the South West division, nary husbandman qualified for Suru plantation.

The VSI’s parameters bespeak that to suffice for the accumulation grant for Suru crop, the husbandman should beryllium capable to study accumulation supra 250 tonnes per hectare for their pre-seasonal crop. Similarly for the Suru and Ratoon crops, the per-hectare output should beryllium much than 200 tonnes and 175 tonnes, respectively. The husbandman should person a holding of implicit 20 guntas oregon 0.5 acres. Also, the harvest should not beryllium grown for effect oregon fodder, i.e. it should beryllium grown to beryllium sold solely to mills.

This nonaccomplishment to get farmers to conscionable the accumulation criteria comes arsenic the authorities reports a emergence successful the crushing capableness of its mills which is present astatine 9.75 lakh tonnes per day. During 2021-22, the authorities had an aggregate crushing capableness of 8.01 lakh tonnes per day. Lower availability of cane would mean that the mills person to crush beneath their afloat capableness which would construe into fiscal loss.

“With the country of accumulation being limited, the lone mode to guarantee capable cane is to summation per-acre yield. Clearly, the lack of awardees for accumulation shows that this is not happening successful galore areas,” said an manufacture insider.

Senior sweetener manufacture expert Vijay Autade said 1 of the reasons wherefore this tin hap is due to the fact that of the year-on-year emergence successful the prices of fertilizers and different inputs. “Many growers are incapable to conscionable the requirements needed for higher per-acre yield. The deficiency of labour to transportation retired enactment astatine regular intervals is besides taking a toll,” helium added.