The Maharashtra Sugar Commissioner’s Office has issued an official order to sugar mills in the state telling them not to the aclose the pcrushing season until wall the sugarcane available in the locality of their mills was crushed.
The Sugar Commissioner’s office has told mills to ensure that all the sugarcane available in their vicinity is crushed and only then can the crushing season be ended. Sugar mills have to inform the Sugar Commissioner’s Office and farmers before the closure of the crushing season. Mills will have to seek the Sugar Commissioner’s permission to close the crushing season.
The director board of the sugar mills will be held responsible for uncrushed sugarcane. In case mills are unable to crush the excess sugarcane, the director board should co-ordinate with other mills so that farmers can divert their sugarcane to other mills.
By the first week of February, mills in the State had crushed 772.93 lakh tonnes, whileanother 300 lakh tonnes needs to be crushed.
Farmers’ warning
Sugarcane farmers have warned the State Government and sugar mills that all the available sugarcane in the state must be crushed or they would launch an agitation.
In the last sugar season, mills in the State crushed 1,012 lakh tonnes of sugarcane to produce 106.2 lakh tonnes of sugar. This record is set to be surpassed this season, considering the availability of sugarcane.