Cabinet approves Rs 3,500 crore subsidy for sugar farmers; subsidy amount to be directly given to farmers

16-12-2020

Cabinet Committee on Wednesday (December 16) approved Rs 3,500 crore subsidy for sugar farmers, said Union Minister Prakash Javadekar. At a press conference, he said 60 lakh tonnes of sugar will be exported during the ongoing marketing year 2020-21 as part of its efforts to help them clear outstanding dues to sugarcane farmers. Javadekar said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a subsidy of Rs 3,500 crore on exports of 60 lakh tonnes of sweetener and the subsidy amount will directly be given to farmers. The minister said both "sugar industry as well as sugarcane farmers are in crisis" because of high domestic production at 310 lakh tonnes as against the annual demand of 260 lakh tonnes. "Farmers sell their sugarcane to the sugar mills, however, the farmers are not getting their dues from the sugar mill owners as they have surplus sugar stock. To address this concern, the Government is facilitating the evacuation of surplus sugar stock. This will enable payment of dues of the sugarcane farmers. The government will incur about Rs 3,500 crore for this purpose, and this assistance would be directly credited into farmers� accounts on behalf of sugar mills against cane price dues and subsequent balance, if any, would be credited to mill�s account," said CCEA in a statement. This subsidy aims at covering expenses on marketing costs including handling, upgrading and other processing costs and costs of international and internal transport and freight charges on export of upto 60 LMT of sugar limited to Maximum Admissible Export Quota (MAEQ) allocated to sugar mills for sugar season 2020-21. This decision will benefit the five crore sugarcane farmers and their dependents, as well as the five lakh workers employed in the sugar mills and related ancillary activities, said CCEA. Mills exported 5.7 million tonnes of sugar against the mandatory quota of 6 million tonnes set for the 2019-20 season (October-September), according to official data.