Govt May Soon Announce Steps To Clear Cane Dues Of Rs 20k Cr


NEW DELHI: Concerned over growing agrarian crisis, the Government will soon take steps to help sugar mills clear dues of over Rs 20,000 crore to cane growers as well as address quality concerns in wheat procurement after the recent spell of unseasonal rains.

Prime Minister Narendra late yesterday held a high-level meeting to discuss concerns of cane growers and wheat farmers.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of Opposition parties attacking the Modi-government for being "insensitive" towards farmers, whose worries have aggravated due to cane arrears and crop failure following recent unseasonal rains and hailstorm.

"Prime Minister discussed issues in length. Some positive steps will soon be taken to address the problems of farmers," highly placed sources said.

In the meeting, the issue of raising import duty on sugar to 40 per cent from existing 25 per cent, creating buffer stock, restructuring of loan, promotion of ethanol output, export subsidy on white sugar were discussed in detail.

The meeting also deliberated on problems faced in procurement of wheat due to quality concerns.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were also present in the meeting.
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Source: PTI