In a spot

Lucknow, Sept. 6: Uttar Pradesh sugar mill owners are in a spot as the Allahabad high court has set an October 31 deadline for them to pay up the dues of cane farmers.

In a verdict yesterday, the court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to sell the sugar stock in godowns and pay farmers’ their dues if the mill owners fail to honour the deadline.

However, mill owners maintain that “unaffordable cane support price and depressed sugar market prices” make it difficult to repay dues.

Cane growers across the state are agitating against mill owners for default of payment on last season’s crop.

The new cane crushing season begins in November.

A division bench of the Allahabad high court, which was hearing a public interest litigation on cane dues, said the government should ensure “the deadline is adhered to both in letter and spirit’.

The court ruled that if mill owners failed to make the payments, “the recovery should be made by selling the sugar stocked in the mills”.

“The mill owners and banks have no rights over the stock of sugar if farmers are not paid their arrears,” the court observed.

An outstanding payment of Rs 5,500 crore for crop purchase in 2013-14 is yet to be cleared by sugar mill owners.

The court has asked industry owners to pay up the dues along with interest.

Most of the sugarcane growers are from western Uttar Pradesh where a by-poll is scheduled on September 13.

The ruling Samajwadi Party, the Rastriya Lok Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party, therefore, want farmers’ dues to be cleared as soon as possible. They have even contacted mill owners to push for an early payment, sources said.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati last week accused Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav of adding to farmers’ despair by not making mill owners pay up last seasons dues when the new one was due in November.

Yesterday’s court order has given a strong ground for the ruling Samajwadi Party to renew its pressure on mill owners. A spokesman of the ruling party said a few weeks back the government had slapped FIRs on the management of some sugar mills.

Farmer leader B.M. Singh, who had filed the public interest litigation, on behalf of Bharatiya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh today said he welcomed the court order and the state should put more pressure on mills to repay the dues.

The Uttar Pradesh Sugar Mills Association has not reacted to the court order.