By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 6 Dec: Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said today that the pending dues of sugarcane farmers would be paid soon. The state government was giving top priority to the interests of the farmers and would work to give sugar mills out on PPP mode for better management and, also, to fully safeguard the interest of the employees. The process of installing Ethanol plants in Kiccha, Doiwala, Bazpur and Nadehi sugar mills was underway.
Rawat formally inaugurated the sugarcane crushing season at the Doiwala Sugar Mill on Thursday.
He said that several programmes were being undertaken as per the Sugarcane Development Project to increase the sugarcane farming areas under Doiwala sugar mill. As part of this, in the secured sugarcane area for the mill in the past three to four years, better quality of sugarcane having highest sugar content was being sown. As a result, there had been an increase of 57 per cent in the sowing of high yielding varieties of sugarcane in the area.
In the past crushing season, from the secured catchment area of Doiwala sugar mill of Doiwala, Dehradun, Haridwar, Roorkee and Paonta Sahib, a total of 29.56 lakh quintals of sugarcane were procured. The mill produced 2,78,405 quintals of sugar. The farmers were to be paid a total of Rs 92.92 crore for their sugarcane, out of which, the mill out of its own sources had paid Rs 46.86 crore, while a sum of Rs 27.28 crore was received from the state government as financial help, and was paid to the farmers. The mill has already paid Rs 74.14 crore to the farmers, which is 80 per cent of the total dues.
The Cane Commissioner has allotted 51 external procurement centres.
