look news india
With the beginning of the new sugar crushing season (Sugar Crushing Season 2026-27) in the month of October, the Central Government has taken a decisive step on the biggest pain of sugarcane farmers. Farmers of the country’s major sugarcane producing states – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab – have been complaining for a long time that there is huge under-weighing of sugarcanes at sugar mills and sugarcane purchase centers and the actual sugar recovery rate is deliberately shown to be reduced in laboratories. Taking a strong stance on this serious problem, Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has announced that a high-level committee will be formed within a week, which will set nationwide technical standards and accountability to bring transparency in weighing and recovery.
The income of sugarcane farmers directly depends on two main factors—the total weight of the sugarcane and the sugar recovery rate of the juice extracted from it:
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Diminution on Dharmakantas: There have been allegations of underestimation of weight by 1 to 3 quintals per trolley or truck by tampering with manual or un-calibrated electronic weighing scales at rural purchasing centres. This resulted in direct loss of thousands of rupees per farmer in the entire season.
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Manipulation in sugar recovery: The Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) declared by the Central Government is linked to the basic recovery rate of 10.25%. If the recovery at the mill exceeds 10.25%, the farmer is set to get an additional premium for every 0.1% increase. Many private sugar mills deliberately kept the recovery rate on paper limited to around 9.5% or 10%, thereby depriving farmers of their due premium payments.
As per the instructions given by the Union Minister, the committee to be formed will work with the state governments, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), farmer organizations and technical experts to implement the following strict measures:
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Digital and cloud-connected weighbridges: Automatic electronic forks will be installed at all sugar mills and outlying sugarcane purchasing centres, whose data will be directly uploaded in real-time to the servers of the state sugarcane department and the central portal. As soon as the weight is recorded, an SMS slip (Digital Slip) will be immediately sent to the registered mobile number of the farmer.
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CCTV Surveillance and Third-Party Lab Testing: The laboratories testing recovery in mills will now be tested by third-party national labs or in the presence of government observers, so that mill owners cannot enter arbitrary figures.
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Surprise Inspection and Sealing: Special teams of the Weights and Measures Department (Legal Metrology) will conduct surprise inspection of thorns anytime during the crushing season. If any discrepancy of even 100 grams is found in any fork, a criminal case will be registered directly against the concerned center administrator and mill management.
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Provision for strict penalty and cancellation of license: Stringent rules will be included to impose heavy financial penalty on mills and suspension of their crushing license if shortfall or concealment of recovery is confirmed.
About 5 crore farmer families in India are directly involved in sugarcane cultivation. While the central government has fixed the historic FRP (Fair and Remunerative Price) of ₹365 per quintal for the crushing season 2026-27, states like Chhattisgarh have recently increased the state rate to ₹425 per quintal. In such a situation, if both weighing and recovery become 100% transparent, then farmers will get every penny of their hard-earned produce.
Farmer representatives of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have welcomed this quick step of the Central Government and said that technology-based automation and CCTV monitoring will bring a complete end to the decades-old practice of discounting and Annadata will be able to get real freedom from the exploitation of middlemen and mill managers.