Kalaburagi: Sugarcane farmers of Kalaburagi district in Karnataka blocked the road, protesting that sugar factories had not paid their dues. Members of the Karnataka Pranta Raitha Sangha took part in the agitation demanding that KPR Sugars, Renuka Sugars, NSL Sugars, and Ugar Sugars immediately pay up due bills for the supplied sugarcane, reports The Hindu.
According to the KPRS district president, Sharanabasappa Mamshetty, a delegation of sugarcane growers met the Director and Commissioner of Sugarcane Development in Bengaluru on July 24 and sought his intervention to release dues to them for their produce supplied to the factory.
Despite this meeting, Mamshetty noted that 12 days had passed without any response from the district administration or the sugar factories.
Mamshetty detailed that KPR Sugars owes ₹17.82 crore for crushing 11 lakh tonnes of sugarcane supplied by 25,000 farmers, while Renuka Sugars has outstanding payments of ₹11.20 crore to 23,000 farmers. He further highlighted that Renuka Sugars paid ₹2,550 per tonne against the fixed Fair Remunerative Price (FRP) of ₹3,282 per tonne. Similarly, NSL Sugars in Aland taluk paid ₹2,450 per tonne against an FRP of ₹3,018 per tonne, and Ugar Sugars in Jewargi taluk paid ₹2,500 per tonne against the FRP of ₹3,150 per tonne.
The sugarcane growers are demanding that the government set the FRP at ₹5,000 per tonne with a recovery rate of 8.5 per cent.
The five-hour-long protest was called off by the evening after district authorities assured the protesters that directives would be issued to the sugar factories to pay the dues and address all their demands by August 25.
The protesters stated that they would wait until August 25 to see if their demands are met, emphasizing that this is not the end of their movement.
