THE fair and remunerative price (FRP) fixed for the 2009-10 sugar year by the government replacing the earlier statutory minimum price (SMP) will function as the floor price for sugarcane payable to the farmer, the Centre has indicated. But it stopped short of stating this, making it legally impossible for sugarcane farmers to demand a higher price as a matter of right if the mills failed to pay more.
“The sugarcane farmer is legally guaranteed a price of Rs 129.84 per quintal of sugarcane. The sugar mills are free to offer any price above the FRP as deemed fit by them,”a press release from the food ministry said here on Friday.
The statement also clarified that the state governments would indeed foot the bill for the difference in sugarcane support payments announced by them and the FRP announced by the Centre.
While suggesting that the FRP would function as the floor price for sugarcane, Friday’s statement simultaneously reiterates that the farmer will also have to forego a mandated right on mills’ profits. It insists that since the FRP of Rs 129.81 per quintal for sugarcane includes a margin of 45% on account of profit and risk to the farmers over the cost of production of cane, including its cost of transportation, he no longer had the right to claim a share of the profits made by sugar mills as was earlier the case during the SMP regime.
The press statement was issued with the categoric purpose of clearing the confusion triggered off by food minister Sharad Pawar’s statement on the FRP issue on Wednesday and who would foot the bill for the difference between the sugarcane support price announced by the state governments and the FRP.
| NIFTY 
