Sugar mills in Maharashtra will start the 2022-23 sugar season (SS) from October 1 hoping for a bumper production in sugarcane. Considering complaints from farmers that sugar mills don’t register and take sugarcane for crushing, the government has now provided a mobile app for farmers to register their sugarcane. Mills cannot refuse to crush the sugarcane for any reason once it is registered on the app.
The sugarcane crushing season in Maharashtra generally starts in mid-October or November and continues till mid-April. In the 2021-22 season, the crushing process continued till the end of May due to the record production of the crop. This year again record sugarcane production is expected in Maharashtra.
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App to ease farmers’ worries
While recently launching the app developed by the Sugar Commissioner’s office, State Co-operative Minister Atul Save said the government is all set to start the sugarcane crushing season from October 1; however, the official decision will be taken by the Cabinet Committee on September 15, he said.
“The area under sugarcane is rising and farmers will not face any trouble to register their cane with mills. There are many complaints about the registration of sugarcane with mills and farmers are worried that their sugarcane will remain uncrushed. Now, this app will solve the problem” Save added.
In the 2021-22 SS, many farmers in the Marathwada region set fire to their sugarcane fields because mills refused to lift their sugarcane for crushing, owing to excess sugarcane.
State Sugar Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said many farmers cannot go to mills to register their sugarcane but now, this issue will be resolved with the app.