Saturday, 13 May 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Accusing the State government of harassing the sugarcane farmers, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Karan Mahara has said that the Congress would launch a state-wide agitation if the dues of farmers are not paid within a month. The PCC president has written a letter to the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, chief secretary of Uttarakhand and the district magistrate of Haridwar in this regard. The vice president of the State Congress Mathura Dutt Joshi said that PCC president in his letter has expressed his concern on the fact that the farmers are being neglected in the country and in the State.
He said that farmers are falling into debt burden due to non receipt of proper value for his produce, high power tariff and non availability of manure and seeds. In such conditions the farmers are failing to repay the loans of the banks.
Mahara in his letter said that sugar mills are yet to pay the dues of farmers of the last crop. He said that the framers of the State are on a path of agitation. “ The farmers are hoping that the government will solve their problems but it has not taken a single decision in the favour of famers. The BJP in its election manifesto of 2022 had promised that the income of the farmers would be doubled but on the contrary the farmers are not able to get proper value for their produce,’’ he said.
Mahara said that the previous elections the BJP had promised to waive off the loans of the farmers and had said that it will clear the dues of sugarcane farmers within 15 days. He said that both these promises have not been fulfilled even as one year of the second tenure of BJP government in the State is over.
Mahara said that news reports suggest that a sum of Rs 23 crore has been released for clearing pending dues of sugarcane farmers but the budget is meagre. He said that the time to sow the new crop of sugarcane is near but the sugarcane farmers are in a dilemma since they have not received their dues. He warned that the Congress party would resist any attempt of the State government to handover the sugar mills to private players. In his letter to CM and CS the PCC president said that the proper compensation to the farmers should be paid for the recent loss of crops due to the recent spell of unseasonal rains and storms.
