Prateek Tanmay
3 min readMumbaiMay 28, 2026 12:35 AM IST
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday raised a host of issues affecting Maharashtra’s sugar cooperative sector and onion farmers during a meeting with Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, seeking urgent intervention from the Centre on pricing, ethanol allocation and procurement reforms.
Fadnavis, accompanied by Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar among other ministers, urged the Centre to increase the minimum selling price (MSP) of sugar from Rs 31 per kg to Rs 41 per kg, arguing that sugar mills were under severe financial stress despite a sharp rise in cane procurement costs.
In a major relief for onion cultivators, the Centre agreed that procurement by NAFED and NCCF would be done directly from farmers instead of traders. The state also requested that onion procurement be increased from two lakh metric tonnes to 10 lakh metric tonnes — a demand that Shah accepted.
The state delegation pointed out that while the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) paid to sugarcane farmers had increased by 26 per cent — from Rs 2,750 per tonne in 2018-19 to Rs 3,550 per tonne in 2025-26 — the MSP of sugar had remained stagnant at Rs 31 per kg.
“The meeting with Amit Shah was very positive. He agreed that the MSP of sugar should increase and that the ethanol quota should also be enhanced,” Fadnavis told reporters after the meeting.
The Maharashtra government also sought a higher ethanol allocation for sugar mills, saying the industry’s financial viability was being hit due to low utilisation. The delegation informed the Centre that against a production capacity of 424 crore litres of ethanol, mills had been allotted only 116 crore litres, resulting in just 27 per cent utilisation.
The Centre has now asked the state government to submit a detailed proposal on issues related to the sugar sector.
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The delegation further raised concerns over falling competitiveness of Indian onions due to large-scale import of onion seeds, and demanded an export surcharge on onion seeds. It also urged the Centre to increase onion procurement prices beyond the current Rs 15.80 per kg.
The state government told the Centre that farmers were often exploited in markets through arbitrary grading practices that labelled produce as substandard. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was also present at the meeting, assured Maharashtra that the Centre would introduce a mechanised grading system to address the issue.
The Centre also agreed to revise insurance cover norms for mango farmers facing financial stress, the state government said.
