KANCHANPUR: Sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur district are deprived of government subsidies. They have not received subsidies due from last year yet.
The government has been providing subsidies to the farmers who sell their sugarcane to the domestic sugar industries. The government provides the subsidy amount every year to the Treasury and Comptroller Office in the districts where the sugar factories are operating. This amount then goes to farmers. However, the sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur district have not been provided with last year's subsidies.
Chetan Kumar Rai, Treasurer of the Committee to Protect Rights and Interests of Sugarcane Farmers, said that the sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur district have yet to get subsidy amounting to Rs 320 million which is last year's due.
"The government has not released the subsidy due amount to the farmers. The sugarcane farmers are facing problems as they have not yet received the outstanding subsidy," he said.
The government had formulated a work procedure in 2018 making provision for providing subsidy to the sugarcane farmers. In the beginning, the farmers were given a subsidy at the rate of Rs 65.28 per quintal and it was increased to Rs 70 per quintal in the last fiscal year.
Two sugar mills — Bhageshwar Sugar Mill at Punarbas and Mahakali Sugar Mill at Belauri — are currently operating in Kanchanpur. Last year, these two sugar mills purchased over 2.66 million quintals of sugarcane from local farmers.
