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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 9:20:26 am

Centre pushes for early sugarcane crushing

Mills seek special subsidy Kolhapur: Despite an estimated 30-40 lakh tonnes of sugar being available in excess of domestic demand, the Centre is stepping up efforts to keep sugar prices under control. The Union Food Ministry has urged Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka to advance the 2026-27 sugarcane crushing season so that fresh sugar reaches the market before the existing stock is exhausted. Sugar mills, however, say an early start will come at a cost. They are seeking special...

Centre pushes for early sugarcane crushing

Mills seek special subsidy Kolhapur: Despite an estimated 30-40 lakh tonnes of sugar being available in excess of domestic demand, the Centre is stepping up efforts to keep sugar prices under control. The Union Food Ministry has urged Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka to advance the 2026-27 sugarcane crushing season so that fresh sugar reaches the market before the existing stock is exhausted. Sugar mills, however, say an early start will come at a cost. They are seeking special financial assistance to compensate for the likely fall in sugar recovery and the reduction in cane weight that could result from crushing in October. India produced around 280 lakh tonnes of sugar last season. The season began with stocks of nearly 50 lakh tonnes, while annual domestic consumption is estimated at around 280 lakh tonnes. With about 35 lakh tonnes expected to remain in stock by September 30, the Centre wants the new season’s production to start flowing into the market without waiting for the traditional crushing cycle. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka account for nearly 80 per cent of India’s sugar production. The Union Food Ministry has therefore written to the chief ministers of the three states, asking them to bring forward the start of the 2026-27 crushing season. The push comes against the backdrop of a sharp movement in sugar prices. Ex-mill prices had earlier climbed to around Rs 68 per kg, pushing retail prices close to Rs 80 per kg. Following a series of measures by the Centre, ex-mill prices have since declined to around Rs 41 per kg. Yet, the government is looking at further measures to bring prices down and ensure that stocks move into the market. One such measure has been the approval of imports of one million tonnes of raw sugar. Since initial applications covered only around eight lakh tonnes, the Centre has invited applications for the remaining quota. It has also reduced the permissible stockholding limit for traders from 400 tonnes to 200 tonnes. The next major point of discussion will be the meeting convened by Union Food and Public Distribution Secretary Sanjeev Chopra with the sugar industry in New Delhi on September 8. The secretaries of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have also been invited. West Indian Sugar Mills Association (WISMA) president B. B. Thombre said the Centre was pushing for crushing to begin around the middle of October. Traditionally, most mills in Maharashtra begin operations around November 15, largely because sugarcane harvesting labour becomes available only after Diwali. The industry is, however, willing to explore an early start between October 20 and 25. But early crushing could have significant implications. According to Thombre, sugar recovery could fall by around 1.5 percentage points, while the weight of sugarcane supplied by farmers could decline by 10-15 per cent. The industry will therefore seek special assistance for cane crushed between October 15 and November 15. At the September 8 meeting, it plans to demand a subsidy of Rs 500 per tonne for sugar mills and Rs 300 per tonne directly for sugarcane farmers.

Sweet revenge for hero Sadanand Date

Mumbai: A year after Sadanand V. Date – a highly decorated IPS officer and 26/11 hero - took over as the Director-General of National Investigation Agency (NIA), it was time to ‘get even’ with one of the country’s most wanted fugitive criminals, Pakistani-Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who was extradited to India from the USA, today.


It marks a fulfilling moment for Date - who toiled for months with Indian and US agencies and waded through the legal tangles to ensure his ‘date with Rana’ – as the terror plotter landed along with a NIA team in New Delhi.


After all legal escape doors were slammed on his face in the US, Rana will face trial in the Mumbai terror strikes of Nov. 26-29, 2008 – the 60 hours when 10 heavily armed Pakistani extremists laid siege to the country’s commercial capital – while the world watched with stunned horror the mini-war unfolding live on billions of television screens.


Official sources reveal that after he took over the post of DG-NIA in March 2024, Date pursued the Rana - an associate of David Coleman Headley - proceedings single-mindedly and ensured it fructified in a year.


Himself one of the ‘warriors’ against the 10 Pakistani terrorists and was injured in the gun-battles with them during the 26/11 mayhem, Date’s stints as the DG-Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, Central Bureau of Investigation and other key positions in his 35-years’ service, helped accomplish ‘Mission Rana’.


However, behind his glamorous success lies a long story of quiet struggles, tears and sacrifices since his birth in an ordinary family in Pune, losing his father at the age of 15, while his mother worked as a cook to feed her own kids.

The bright young Date, hungry for education, chipped in by working as a newspaper delivery boy from 1977 for nearly 10 years, to part-finance his studies in school-college, plus help lessen his mom’s burden.

Subsequently, he completed his B. Com, M.Com., became a Cost Accountant (ICAI), and also earned a PhD in Commerce from the Savitribai Phule Pune University, but was attracted to public service, so also cracked his UPSC exams (1999), to become an IPS officer.


While with the CBI, Date was sent on a Humphrey Fellowship (2005-2006) to the University of Minnesota where he studied the scourge of ‘white-collar and organized crimes in the USA’, plus the theoretical and practical aspects of dealing with it.


Armed with the expertise, after returning to Mumbai, he was appointed the Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing), later headed the elite ‘Force One’ in Maharashtra, built on the lines of the National Security Guards, plus other important posts.


During the 26/11 terror hits, sporting the Mumbai Police’s modest weapons and courageous cops, Date literally chased the Pakistan terrorists, particularly the trigger-happy duo - Ajmal Kasab (nabbed alive) and the equally houndish Abu Ismail Khan – near the Cama and Albless Hospital – where more than 500 women, children, doctors and nurses trembled, awaiting help.


Date and Co. valiantly battled Kasab-Khan, seen lurking around like a cat in the dark around the hospital campus, firing indiscriminately at the police, before moving ahead to create bedlam at another location.


First, the duo hijacked a police jeep, abandoned it; then overpowered a private car driver, sped off in his car towards Chowpatty Beach at the dead of the night, where after a gun-battle, Khan was killed while Kasab was nabbed alive and virtually unharmed.


In the hospital shootout, though many lives of innocents were saved, Date and his men sustained bullet injuries.


At one point early that morning, Date was even speculated to be dead in sections of the media, but he not only survived, recovered fully and bounced back to his passion of policing, grabbing accolades and honours over the past 17 years.


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