Kolhapur: Sugar cane harvesting season kick-started in Maharashtra from Friday, but the activity would be carried out at a slow pace until the election is over.
The cane cutting season lasts from four to five months usually starting by mid-Oct. But this time, owing to the delayed monsoon, the process was delayed until Nov 15. The date was fixed by a ministerial committee of the state govt.
According to sugar commissioner's office in Pune, over 120 sugar mills have been served with the crushing licence. Sugar cane is grown on about two lakh hectares in Maharashtra. There are around 200 sugar mills, both in the cooperative and private sectors that crush sugar cane to make sugar and ethanol.
Cane crushing, however, is likely to gather pace after voting comes to an end on Nov 20. Many mill owners are also contesting the elections and according to them, not only are they busy with campaigning but the cane cutters are yet to arrive in some parts.
"We require around 4,000 cane cutters. We have started crushing with the cutters who have arrived," Sharad Lad, chairman of Kranti cooperative sugar factory from Kundal in Sangli district, said. TOI recently reported that majority of sugar cane cutters are likely to miss voting. Many cutters are on their way to the sugar cane belts of Maharashtra, and many have already migrated to neighbouring states such as Gujarat and Karnataka, where crushing has already begun.
A Beed-based organisation, Maharashtra Us Todni Va Vahatuk Kamgar Sanghatana, an association of sugar cane cutters and transport workers, had filed a PIL in the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court to allow voting from their workplace or make transport arrangements for the cutters to go back to their native place to exercise their franchise.
Since the petition came late, the HC has not given directions with respect to the pleas made.
However, the court has asked election authorities to at least explore the ways and means to address the issue of the right to franchise by the cane cutters who migrate to other areas temporarily.
