Punjab hikes sugarcane price to Rs 380 per quintal
Darpan News Desk IANS, 03 Oct, 2022 01:05 PM
Chandigarh, Oct 3 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday announced an increase in the price of sugarcane to Rs 380 per quintal, a hike of Rs 20.
Announcing this on the floor of Assembly, he said the farmers will get the additional amount under State Agreed Price (SAP) of sugarcane as compared to the last year.
With this decision, the state government will spend additional Rs 200 crore annually to benefit the farmers.
Mann said the farmers of the state eagerly want to adopt sugarcane crop under crop diversification, but they are hesitant for it due to lack of adequate price and timely payment of the crop.
At present, sugarcane is cultivated on just 1.25 lakh hectares in Punjab, while the total crushing capacity of sugar mills was around 2.50 lakh hectares. This is why the state government has decided to enhance the price to supplement the income of farmers, he said.
Informing the House about the present status of the payments, the Chief Minister said cooperative sugar mills have already paid the entire dues of the farmers but two private sugar mills have not paid the dues yet.
He said the owners of the mills have fled from the country, adding the state government has already initiated the process to confiscate their assets to pay the pending dues of the farmers.
The CBI had registered a case on April 13, 2016 on the request of Chandigarh Administration and had taken over the investigation of the FIR earlier registered at Police Station, Sector-26, Chandigarh.
Bishnoi, who was brought from New Delhi after procuring the transit remand from Patiala House court, was produced in a Mansa court in Punjab at around 4 a.m. amid high-level security after his medical check-up.
The police have also recovered an illegal weapon and live cartridge from the criminal. The accused has been identified as Aakash, a native of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.
The Punjab Police informed Delhi Police that the location of one of the phone numbers was traced to Delhi, and that the accused were changing their locations frequently. Acting on the tip-off, Delhi Police followed the leads obtained through technical surveillance and digital footprints.
SSP Mohali, Vivek Sheel Soni said, the two accused identified as Gagandeep Singh alias Gaagi and Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi are residents of Dabbwali in Sirsa district of Haryana.
