Hooda unveils Rs 500-crore bonanza for cane growers

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 26

The Hooda government has unveiled a Rs 500-crore bonanza for farmers by substantially hiking the sugarcane prices for 2013-14  a populist measure to woo the farming community ahead of next years parliamentary and state Assembly elections. The new prices, which were approved by the Haryana State Sugar Control Board at a meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today, are Rs 301 per quintal for the early variety, Rs 295 per quintal for mid-variety and Rs 290 per quintal for late variety. With this hike, the sugarcane prices in Haryana are the highest in the country, Hooda claimed. The hike is Rs 25 per quintal for the early variety and Rs 24 for the mid and the last variety.The sharp increase in the sugarcane prices in the pre-poll year is understandable and in sharp contrast to the last year when the farmers had to resort to the stoppage of sugarcane supply to sugar mills to demand the hike in cane prices. Bowing to farmers' demands, Hooda had announced Rs 276 as the rate of early variety for the year 2012-13 (up from Rs 231 per quintal for 2011-12), Rs 271 for mid-variety (from Rs 226) and Rs 266 for late variety (Rs 221). In fact, taking a dig at the Akhilesh government in UP, Hooda said arrears amounting to Rs 2,500 crore were pending with private and government sugarmills in the state while in Haryana no arrears were pending. Meanwhile, Gurnam Singh, president of the state unit of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), said according to government estimates, the farmer had to spend Rs 236 for producing one quintal of sugarcane. If the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee and the working group of Chief Ministers, of which Hooda was the chairman, were taken into consideration, the farmer had to be paid 50 per cent more than the input costs. By this logic, the farmer should be paid Rs 354 per quintal, the BKU chief added. In poll mode . Dal-roti scheme for the states 50 per cent population

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Special housing schemes for the poor Incentive to cane growers doubled

Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 26

Giving a major benefit to sugarcane cultivators, the Haryana Government has doubled the incentive money to farmers sowing advanced varieties of sugarcane through the ring pit method. The incentive money has been increased to Rs 8000 per acre from Rs 4,000 given earlier. An official spokesman said here today that farmers could earn more profit by sowing advanced varieties of sugarcane, namely Co-0238, Co-0239, Co-89003. With a view to curbing diseases of sugarcane crop, the government was also giving a 10 per cent grant on various pesticides. Also, a DAP bag per acre would be provided to farmers sowing advanced varieties of sugarcane at half the rate.