A day after D.K. Shivakumar said he had sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Karnataka chief minister also sent him a letter on Monday seeking the Centre’s urgent intervention regarding the demands of protesting sugarcane farmers.
He also sought the start of the crushing season in north Karnataka.
Shivakumar highlighted in the letter that sugarcane farmers in north Karnataka are protesting and undertaking padayatras toward Hubbali to gherao the residence of Union minister of food and public distribution Pralhad Joshi.
Shivakumar also informed that road blockades have occurred at multiple locations, prompting the high court to issue directions restraining the proposed protest near the Union minister’s residence.
The chief minister had visited Kittur in Belagavi district on October 17 and met the protesting sugarcane farmers, appealing to them to call off their padayatras. They were in no mood to relent, maintaining that their primary demands fall under the Centre’s jurisdiction and they would not call off the agitation without assurances from the Union government.
“The crushing season has not commenced due to the ongoing protests in north Karnataka. Mature sugarcane remains in the fields where the delay is causing loss of cane weight and sugar content. The continuing road blockades are also disrupting public life and causing considerable hardship to the general public,” Shivakumar wrote.
The Karnataka government has also urged the Centre to revise the minimum selling price of sugar, set separate MSP for domestic and commercial sugar, review the exclusion of cane-based ethanol from the procurement tender, increase the price of cane-based ethanol and restore the fair remunerative price base recovery to 9.50 per cent.