Early on Friday morning, a tractor carrying sugarcane to a sugar-crushing facility in Maharashtra's Belagavi talk was set on fire by the protesting farmers' organizations, according to those with information regarding the situation.
The development resulted from the Maharashtra sugarcane growers' decision to stop providing cane to south Maharashtra sugar-crushing mills after they failed to pay the sum that they had asked.
A tractor carrying sugarcane to a sugar mill in Maharashtra, close to Bodakyanatti village in Belagavi taluk, was set ablaze by a few people, who were reportedly from Maharashtra, at around one in the morning on Friday, according to Belagavi police. “A group of about 12 believed to the farmers from Maharashtra set ablaze a tractor in the border village of our state in our station limits and fled away from the scene,” Kakati sub inspector of police Manjunath Hulakunt told HT.
According to what he said, a sugarcane farmer from Tavarewad village in Chandgad taluk, Maharashtra, was using a double-trolley tractor to carry sugarcane from Tavarewad village to a sugar mill in Chandgad taluk via Karnataka. A dozen or so farmers from the Chandgad region, which is close to Bodakyanatti village in Belagavi taluk, stopped the vehicle, took the loaded cane out of the trolleys and then poured the petrol on the engine before setting it on fire.
“I was transporting the sugarcane to the sugar factory via Karnataka as the route is small and also to avoid the ‘Farmers Vigilance Squad’ keeping a watch on all the border areas of Maharashtra,” the tractor driver said.
The owner of the tracker and the sugar factory have filed two separate complaints with the Kakati police on the issue. “We have registered the complaints, the FIR will be framed after investigation,” Kakati sub inspector Hulakunt said.
Under the name "Swabhimani Shethkari Sanghatana, Kolhapur" (Self Resected Farmers’ Organisation, Kolhapur), the sugarcane growers in south Maharashtra have made the decision to stop supplying sugarcane to sugar mills in the southern part of the state because the mills have not given the growers the sum of money that they have demanded. The growers of sugarcane have made the decision to keep the ban in place until their demands are satisfied.
Farmer leader and former Shivasena MP Raju Shetti told media persons at Kolhapur, “We want the mills in our region to pay a minimum sum of ₹3,800 to ₹4,000 for per tonne of cane supplied. Since our demand has not been considered, we have decided not to supply cane to any factory, this season.”
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