BELAGAVI: Thirty-four sugar factories in the state have produced over 45 lakh litres of ethanol this season. The government is taking steps to make factories give a percentage of the profits from such byproducts to sugarcane farmers, said Minister for Sugar and Textiles Shankar Patil-Munenkoppa in the Council on Tuesday.
MLCs Ramesh and Prakash Rathod, who raised the question, asked as to why the price of sugarcane is Rs 3,500 per tonne in Punjab, Maharashtra, Telangana, UP and other states, while it is below Rs 3,000 in Karnataka. The factories are also cheating farmers while weighing sugarcane, Rathod said. Cutting across party lines, senior MLCs Laxman Savadi, Prakash Hukkeri, Maritibbegouda and BK Hariprasad participated in the debate.
Opposition members walked into the well of the House when Chairman Raghunath Rao Malkapure did not allow Large and Medium-Scale Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani to speak on the topic.
Munenkoppa said, “For the first time in the state, we raided 21 factories recently to check their weighbridges and ensure transparency. Following Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s instructions, we have started taking strict actions against factories who are cheating growers.”
On the price being low, he said other states have implemented the State Advisory Price (SAP) Bills that allows them to pay growers a higher price. As a similar Bill is yet to be passed in Karnataka, the state has implemented Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) which is being obeyed by all factories, he said.
