Cane Commissioner Punjab Hussain Bahadur has clarified in a statement that as per the order of Chief Minister Punjab, the food department had started preparations for the new season before the crushing season and clear cut directions were issued to all the sugar mills in October 2022 regarding basic preparations of crushing season. The Punjab Government fixed the minimum price of sugarcane from Rs.225 to Rs 300 and issued directions to relevant DCs/ additional cane commissioner to enable district purchase monitoring and examining to ensure timely payment by sugar growers. Meanwhile, through a notification on November 18, all mills were mandated to start operate till November 25, 2022. But it was seen that out of 41 sugar mills of Punjab, 10 sugar mills did not operate the mills till November 25, on which the Cane Commissioner Punjab issued show cause notices to 10 sugar mills. 6 FIRs were registered against the owners as the response was not in accordance with the law. Meanwhile, on the complaints of the farmers from some areas of Punjab about the reduction in the weight of sugarcane by the sugar mills, the Cane Commissioner Punjab had also deployed teams of the district administration at the sugar mill gate for 24-hour monitoring. It was also important to mention here that since the beginning of the new crushing season, all the sugar mills have crushed 28,47,709 metric tons and produced 1,97,964 metric tons of sugar while till the end of November, the total payment of 1,408,505,621 was paid to the sugar growers. Regarding the crushing season 2022-23, the food department make it clear that the entire government machinery is being used to ensure full and fair payment of sugarcane to the farmers as per the government policy while the Immediate action is being taken against any kind of violation.
