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Since the prices of firewood have gone sky-high and now it is selling at Rs 350 per maund, the kiln owners and other people are purchasing sugarcane at Rs 60 to 65 per maund to use as fuel.
The cash crop of sugarcane, that has in the recent past caused sugar crisis and rocked the government due to sugar scandals, is being sold as fuel to brick kilns in Punjab as sugar mills are not willing to buy cane. Sugarcane growers are now avoiding to sell their produce to the sugar mills at Rs 50 to Rs 55 per maund and they are selling sugarcane to kiln owners on cash at higher rate.
The President of Anjuman Kashtkaran Punjab, Abdul Ali Zakir Usmani, said that sugar mills owners were fleecing the farmers with both hands. They were forcing the farmers to sell their produce at throwaway price and they were deducting 20 to 25 percent weight pretending that sucrose is less than required by the factory. But the current situation has provided the farmers another buyer and ended the monopoly of sugar mills.
He said that the farmers were not getting government notified rates after harvesting a bumper sugarcane crop in last Kharif season. Though major portion of sugarcane crop has been mowed and crushed but a considerable size of the crop is still standing in the fields, particularly in Punjab. Growers complained that sugar mills were not ready to purchase their produce.
The highest desperation was reported from some areas of Punjab particularly in Sargodha District where growers are helplessly selling sugarcane to brick kilns at throwaway prices, whereas kiln owners used one of the major cash crops as fuel purpose.
"It is the worst situation and had never happened in the history of the country," the farmers association spokesman said. On the other hand, the Mardan Sugar Mills, located in NWFP, has closed crushing operation because of short supply. Sugarcane supply in NWFP is reported hardly 30 percent as growers are supplying a big quantity of sugarcane to gur producers in the province.
The official notified rates of sugarcane in NWFP province is the highest, at Rs 65 per maund, as compared to Rs 63 per maund in Sindh and Rs 60 per maund in Punjab, which is also forcing sugar mills to suspend crushing.
However, sugar mills in Dara Ismail Khan (DI Khan) are continuously doing the job but sugar recovery level in the NWFP is reported at 1.5 to 2 percent--drastically reduced--due to frost.
"In Sindh, out of 31 sugar mills, Ghotki, Habib sugarmills and Sanghar Sugar Mills are paying to farmers at official notified rates, whereas Al-Abbas Sugar Mills and Mirpur Khas Sugar Mills are paying Rs 57 per maund that is six rupees below official rates," growers said.
Most of the mills in Sindh allegedly do not issue bills to growers, which may provide a proof of sugarcane delivery at mills. It is also reported that mills are also deducting 5 to 15 percent quantity from supplied sugarcane and almost all sugar mills have hired middlemen who dictate their own terms to growers.
Similarly another problem sugarcane growers confront with is that sugar mill owners give delivery slips, instead of cash. In this way growers lose Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 on one trolley of sugarcane. "For past some days sugar mills have developed a new mode of payment in Sindh," growers sources said.
They said that some mill owners expressed inability to pay to the growers and instead offered them white refined sugar stocks in place of cash at higher than market rates on particular date. Later, the manager of same mill came to the growers before leaving the gate and extended buyback offer of around 25 paisa below the purchased rates. In this case the ultimate losers are also the growers.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2008

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