Pune: Maharashtra government has indicated the readiness to provide a guarantee to the financially weak cooperative sugar mills in the state.
According to the news report published in The Indian Express, in a meeting chaired by Minister of Cooperation Balasaheb Patil in Pune on Thursday, mills have been urged to ensure that pre-seasonal loans, for which the government would stand guarantee, have to be repaid before the end of the 2020-21 sugar season
The state government had earlier set five parameters to grant financial guarantee to the sugar mills. According to government officials, 33 sugar mills that had applied for the government scheme did not fulfil the parameters set by the government.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Patil said the state government will take utmost care to ensure crushing of cane happens on time.
According to the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), Maharashtra’s net cane area has gone up by about 43% in 2020-21 SS, which is mainly due to above normal SW and NE monsoon in 2019, followed by normal rainfall from January to March’ 2020. As against the net cane area of 7.76 lakh ha. in 2019-20 SS, area is expected to increase to 11.12 lakh ha in 2020-21. It is noteworthy that during the current 2019-20 SS around 0.5 lakh ha cane area was completely lost due to floods in July- August’ 2019.
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