Cabinet will help farmers directly by depositing money of subsidy into their accounts: The Minister

The Centre has declared a subsidy of Rs 3,500 crore for the export of 60 lakh tonnes of sugar in the current sugar season 2020-21.

This subsidy amount, however, will be directly credited into the accounts of cane farmers against outstanding dues of mills. It also freed an allocation of Rs 5,361 crore towards subsidy for the last marketing year (2019-20), when it had declared export assistance of Rs 10,448 per tonnes. The Minister said, “The sugar production in the current season is estimated at nearly 310 lakh tonnes while the domestic consumption is nearly 260 lakh tonnes for the current year, therefore the domestic price is low.”

In a statement, CCEA said, “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 ?3,500 crores 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 the mill’s account.” This decision would serve five crore sugarcane farmers and their dependents, as well as five lakh workers employed in the sugar mills and related ancillary activities.