“The cabinet has approved the highest ever Fair and Remunerative Price of Rs 315/qtl for Sugarcane Farmers for sugar season 2023-24. The decision will benefit 5 crore sugarcane farmers and their dependents, as well as 5 lakh workers employed in the sugar mills and related ancillary activities,” said Thakur.
FRPs for sugarcane are typically fixed to ensure a guaranteed price to sugarcane growers and thus it does not take into account whether sugar mills will generate profit or stay in the red. Analysts opine that higher FRPs generally hurt the margins of the sugar mills. Most sugar industry stocks where trading in the negative territory, even as the Sensex and Nifty hit record highs.
Some listed sugar stocks like that of Dhampur Sugar Mills Ltd, Uttam Sugar Mills Ltd, E I D-Parry (India) Ltd and Dwarikesh Sugar Industries on Wednesday (as of 2 pm) were trading under pressure.
Last year, the government had increased the minimum price that mills have to pay to sugarcane growers by Rs 15 to Rs 305 per quintal for the 2022-23 marketing year starting October last year. The decision was aimed at benefiting around 5 crore sugarcane farmers and their dependents, as well as about 5 lakh workers employed in sugar mills and related ancillary activities.
The FRP of sugarcane is fixed to ensure a guaranteed price to sugarcane growers. According to a 2022 report, the government has increased FRP by more than 34 per cent in the last eight years.The cabinet also gave a nod to set up a National Research Foundation through an act of parliament, stated Thakur. “The National Research Foundation Bill will be introduced in the Parliament to set up a National Research Foundation. Meanwhile, Science and Engineering Research Board Act, 2008 will be repelled,” he added.It also approved bouquet of schemes including Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s PRANAM scheme and Urea Gold scheme to boost wellbeing of farmers, rejuvenate soil productivity, and ensure food security & environmental sustainability with a total outlay of Rs 3,70,128.7 crore.
“In the next three years, the Modi government will be spending Rs 3 lakh 70 thousand crore for farmers’ welfare,” said Union Health Minister Mansukh Maandaviya at press briefing after Cabinet meeting.
The scheme, called Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana (PRANAM), aims to promote balanced use of fertilisers along with bio-fertilisers.
The scheme was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the budget for 2023-24. The driving point behind the scheme is to cut down the subsidy burden on chemical fertilisers, which is estimated to reach Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-23, much higher than the previous years.
The cabinet decided to continue the Urea Subsidy scheme to ensure constant availability of urea to the farmers at the same price of Rs 242/45 kg bag for the next three years. Union minister Mandaviya also stated that eight nano urea plants with production capacity of 44 crore bottles (equal to 195 LMT) of conventional urea will be commissioned by 2025-26.
(With inputs from agencies)