The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government has raised the state advised price (SAP) of all sugarcane varieties by Rs 20 per quintal for the 2023-24 (October to September) season to around Rs 370 for early sown varieties.UP is one of India’s largest sugarcane-producing states and it has the most private sugar mills. Almost 4.5 million farmers are directly dependent on the crop, making them an important electorate for any political party in the state.
UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab and Karnataka are among states that fix their own sugarcane purchase price on the basis of input costs or SAP. Other states follow the fair and remunerative price decided by the central government on the recommendation of Commission for Agriculture Cost and Prices (CACP).
The BJP government in UP last raised the SAP by Rs 25 per quintal in 2021, ahead of the state polls for the 2021-22 sugar season.
Uttar Pradesh has three varieties of sugarcane: Early, ordinary and rejected. The early variety constitutes over 95 per cent of the sugarcane cultivated (in the state), followed by 2.7 per cent of the ordinary variety and the rejected variety, which constitutes barely 0.3 per cent.
In the 2022-23 season, the state retained SAP at Rs 350 per quintal for early sown sugarcane varieties, Rs 340 per quintal for general varieties and Rs 335 per quintal for rejected varieties.