HYDERABAD, March 4: The amount the sugar mills owe to growers is likely to run into billions of rupees towards the end of crushing season as the mills take weeks if not months to release payments, fuelling growers’ fears the huge amount may get stuck up.

“I believe an amount of Rs7.87 billion according to official rate of Rs63 per 40 kilogramme will be stuck up against mills over last 50 days of crushing given the delay the mills make after they receive cane,” said Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) chief Abdul Majeed Nizamani on Tuesday.

He said that under the Sugar Factories Control Act 1950 the mills were bound to make payments of cane within eight days of supply of cane and confirmed that by and large the cane was being purchased at the rate of Rs42 to Rs57 per 40 kg.

He said that the sugar mills in SIndh were crushing around one lack tons of cane daily and the trends indicated that they would take between 45 to 50 days to make payment, which would keep outstanding dues accumulating.

He said that total crushing capacity of the country’s sugar mills came to around 60 million metric tons and expressed hope that around 53.5 million metric tons of cane would be crushed this year.

Reports from some districts revealed that sugarcane was still standing on a huge area and waiting to be harvested and transported to sugar mills. The longer the crop stood in field the lighter would it become in weight.

Growers complained that the mills were not issuing indent to small growers for lifting sugarcane and approaching them through middlemen to avoid paying them official rate of sugarcane.

“I know a middle man of Tando Allahyar who is supplying around 30,000 tons of sugarcane daily to the mills and the rate offered by him to a grower is between Rs40-Rs50 per 40 kg,” said a grower from Tando Allahyar.

Small growers are helpless in this situation as they are compelled to sell their produce to recover their investment and vacate land for other crops.

There are reports that mills do not issue bills to growers in some cases to avoid embarrassment as the bills carry details of vehicle’s number that brought cane to the mills, weight and rate of sugarcane.

“I have come to know that the mill owners are preparing to challenge even that twice-revised official rate of Rs63 in court to avoid paying difference to growers,” said another grower.

Officials at the Sindh Cane Commissioner’s office appear less perturbed by middleman. “Mills are making provisional payment to growers and on the basis of growers bills we will certainly ensure payment of difference to growers after crushing comes to an end,” said the Cane Commissioner Nazar Mohammad Baloch on phone.

No growers had made a formal complaint against any middleman hence no action against them so far, he said, disputing reports the mill owners had stocked a large quantity of sugar, which the federal government had not purchased from them through Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP).

Though Sindh has exceeded last year’s figures and until Feb 29 over 12 million metric tons of cane has been crushed a huge quantity of sugarcane is yet to be harvested and transported to mills in different areas.

Information gathered by this scribe showed that Sindh was likely to cross the crushing the 15 million metric tons mark this year with a likely increase of 29.3 per cent as compared to last year’s crushing of 11.6 million metric tons.

This year the mills began crushing season on Nov 18, 2007 and the government failed to enforce its writ when the mills flaunted its notification for commencement of crushing season. The Sindh government had earlier fixed Rs67 per 40 kg as official rate but failed to enforce it.

Then the caretaker government revised it downwards Rs63 per 40 kg thanks to influence of a caretaker minister who was more tilted towards sugarcane industry.