The cane price dispute adds to the woes of the mill owners, with the farmers now selling their produce to cane-mafias or “kolhus”, who are offering them better prices for their produce.

This has now led to a bitter fight between the private sugar barons, leading to a detrimental effect on the cooperative sector and corporation-run mills. To put an end to this acrimonious state, the state sugarcane department has ordered FIRs to be lodged against errant sugar mills indulging in unauthorised cash purchases.

“Officials of the cane department are patrolling in the affected areas to nab the cane mafias and prevent the mills from poaching into each other’s territory,” said Dr R L Upadhyay, Deputy Cane Commissioner of the Muzaffarnagar-Saharanpur region.

According to Upadhyay, six FIRs have been lodged — three of them against private sugar mills like Tikola, Thana Bhawan and the rest against cane mafias in Shakumbari, Gagalhedi and Sarsawa mill areas.

Desperate to woo farmers, unlike previous years, most of the private sugar mills, this year are clearing the dues rapidly. Owing to this, cooperative mills are facing the major brunt of the heightened competition.

In Pilibhit, three cooperative mills have already shut down, said Dr VB Singh, District Cane Officer.

“Our mill is running at 40-45 per cent capacity due to paucity of cane. Earlier, our production would hit 70,000 quintal per day and now we are only producing 32-35 thousand quintals per day,” said Dhan Singh, Vice-President of Dhampur group, Rajpura unit. “The diversion of cane production to the ‘kolhus’ has accentuated the shortage.”

In Muzaffarnagar- Saharanpur area, mills are running at one third of their capacity, said Dr Upadhyay.

Mills in the Meerut region are running at 40-60 per capacity, said Satender Singh, Deputy Cane Commissioner.