Sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur deprived of Rs. 320 million subsidies

Kathmandu: Sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur, have been deprived of government subsidies. They have not yet received the subsidies due from last year.

The government has been providing subsidies to the sugarcane 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 is then to the farmers. However, the sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur district have not been provided with last year’s subsidies. Chetan Kumar Rai, the Treasurer of the Committee to Protect Rights and Interests of Sugarcane Farmers, said that the sugarcane farmers in Kanchanpur district are yet to get a subsidy amounting to Rs. 320 million that is last year’s due.

‘The government has not released the subsidy amount due to the farmers. The sugarcane farmers are in problem 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 are currently operating in Kanchanpur district – Bhageshwar Sugar Mill at Punarbas and Mahakali Sugar Mill at Belauri. Last year, these two sugar mills purchased 2 million 666 thousand 48 quintals of sugarcane from the farmers.

RSS