BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in addressing the demands of sugarcane farmers in Karnataka, seeking early decisions on five key issues, including revision of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of sugar and restoration of the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) base recovery to 9.5%.
In a letter, Shivakumar urged Modi to revise the MSP of sugar which has remained at Rs 31 per kg since February 2019 while the FRP has risen from Rs 2,750 to Rs 3,650 per tonne.
With sugar selling at about Rs 45 per kg, a revision now will not raise consumer prices, but it will protect farmers’ payments, the CM argued. The CM also urged the PM to review the ethanol directive of October 2026 after the crop estimate of February 2027, beginning with B-heavy molasses and revise the price of cane-based ethanol, unchanged since 2022-23 for juice and B-heavy molasses.
The CM also urged the PM to restore the FRP base recovery to 9.5% , so that farmers in low-recovery areas are not penalised for soil and climate. Fix separate MSPs for domestic and commercial sugar, protecting household consumers while bulk buyers pay a fair price.
Also, review the revenue-sharing formula to include ethanol and co-generation revenue and set up a Price Stabilisation Fund, as recommended by the NITI Aayog Task Force and the CACP, he stated.
The CM also stated that a timely announcement will help the state persuade the farmers to end the agitation and allow cane crushing to proceed. The CM also mentioned that he had convened a meeting with the farmers and representatives of all sugar mills recently at Belagavi to hear the concerns of both sides.
The state has done all that is within its powers. All 81 operating mills now use digital weighbridges under the Standard Operating Procedure and mill laboratories are inspected twice a month, wrote the CM. In another letter to Union Minister for Food and Public distribution, Pralhad Joshi, he urged the Centre to fix sugarcane FRP at Rs 5,500 per tonne under the C2 plus 50 % formula as recommended by the MS Swaminathan Commission and hike sugar MSP from Rs 31 to Rs 41.50 per kg.