Maharashtra to give soft loans to sugarcane farmers

The Maharashtra cabinet today decided to provide soft loans to sugarcane farmers for this year's crushing season, an official said. An official in the Maharashtra Chief Minister's office said that co-operative sugar factories will be given short term loan and bank guarantee for the crushing season. At least 22 co-operatives with negative net worth and those which have paid 90 percent of the Free Remunerative Price, will benefit from the government's decision, the official said.

As per the preliminary reports, sugarcane production covers 9.87 lakh hectares this year. Nearly 760 lakh metric tonne of cane is likely to be crushed and 85.88 lakh metric tonne of sugar is expected to be produced this year, the official said.