Maharashtra govt announces loans to hasten cane harvest

Concerned with the huge backlog of non-harvested sugarcane standing in fields, the state government has announced special recovery loan to give an impetus to the early harvest of the crop.
This was announced by minister for cooperation and parliamentary affairs, Harshwardhan Patil, while speaking to mediapersons in Pune on Sunday.

The state government will be giving Rs65 per tonne of sugar for cane crushed between May 1 and15; Rs130 between May 16 and 30; and Rs195 from June 1 onwards.

Also, in order to give impetus to the transport of sugarcane to the factory, a special transport allowance of Rs3 per tonne, per km would be given.

Patil stated that at present 30 lakh metric tonnes of sugarcane still remains to be harvested in 7 districts. Solapur leads the list with 15.5 lakh metric tonnes.

Pune has 7 lakh metric tones, while Sangli has 30,000 metric tonnes to be harvested.  Patil stated that the loans are being proposed to help speed up harvest. “Sugar factories have been asked to operate till all the crushing is completed,” he said.