Sugarcane farmers to denounce I-T action at Gangadhara on Wednesday

SURAT: The Federation of Gujarat State Cooperative Sugar Factories (FGSCSF) will be organizing a public meeting of sugarcane farmers at Gangadhara to protest against the notices and action by the income tax (I-T) department on sugar mills for paying sugarcane price over and above the fair and remunerative price (FRP) fixed by the Central government.
A massive public meeting is being scheduled at Gangadhara in Surat district on April 23 where the farmers from across the state are likely to converge in huge numbers to protest against the action by the I-T department.
FGSCSF chairman Mansinh Patel told TOI, "Sugar mills in Gujarat and Maharashtra are run on co-operative basis and thus the farmers are being paid sugarcane prices over and above the FRP fixed by government since many years. In the last few months, the I-T department has started issuing notices to the sugar mills for recovering tax on the sugarcane price paid above FRP in the last six years."
Patel added, "If the recovery of the last six years is computed then the sugar mills in the state will have to pay a total of Rs 2,000 crore worth of Income Tax. We do not want to pay the tax as the system of paying the prices above FRP is quite old. Thus, we are organizing a massive meeting of farmers to protest the action by the I-T department."
Recently, the I-T department started the process of sealing sugar plants in Valsad and Gandevi for not paying tax.
Gujarat is among the top five sugar producing states in the country with 17 factories that have a total production capacity of 65,000 tonnes a day.