Despite the corona crisis, sugar mills in Maharashtra are taking steps to clear cane dues. According to the media report, sugar mills from Maharashtra have paid 97 per cent of the total FRP to the sugarcane farmers. The mills have cleared FRP worth amounting to Rs 13,150 crore out of Rs 13,508 crore to the cane farmers.
As per news report published in The Hindu Businessline, about 107 sugar mills have paid 100 per cent FRP. Compared to 73 sugar mills that received Revenue Recovery Certificate (RRC) last season, no sugar mill was slapped with the notice this year.
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.
Normal Pre – Monsoon rainfall ‘2020 followed by normal rainfall in June’ 2020 (as on date), accompanied by above normal level of reservoirs is found to be beneficial for early growth of adsali and pre–seasonal crops (18 months and 15 months crop) during their grand growth period. In view of above, overall yield per hectare is expected to go up in the State. Sugar production is, therefore, estimated to be around 101.34 lakh tonnes in 2020-21 SS, as against 61.61 lakh tonnes produced in 2019-20 SS, i.e. higher by about 39.73 lakh tonnes.
To Listen to this News click on the play button.
