Lucknow, Dec 17 : Sugarcane growers in Uttar Pradesh continued their agitation for the second day Thursday to protest the steps taken by the state government to get them better prices.

Farmers have not been mollified by the government's move to persuade mill owners to shell out a price higher than the state advised price (SAP) of Rs. 165-170 a quintal, fixed in October.

Thousands of farmers converged here from different parts of the state to stand outside the office of the state sugarcane commissioner.

"Certain mills might have agreed to pay a price of Rs. 215 a quintal, but that has created more confusion," said V. M. Singh, chief of Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, a farmers' lobby group, at a press conference here Thursday evening.

"This price was not binding on any mill owner, who was free to negotiate and secure different bargains with different farmers," said Singh, who was accompanied by state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi.

Singh said he is in no mood to relent from his demand for a "uniform price" that he wants to be applicable to all mills, including those in the public and cooperative sectors.

We have received reports about some private mills paying up to Rs. 215 a quintal, but there is not a single cooperative or public sector sugar mill ready to pay that price," he said.

"Let the state announce it would ensure a uniform price of Rs. 215 to be paid by all sugar mills, and that price should be applicable with retrospective effect right from the start of this crushing season", Singh said.

According to him, "Such a demand was very much in consonance with the letter and spirit of a Supreme Court order".

Citing excerpts from that order, he said: "The country's apex court had clearly ruled that the power of the state cane commissioner to reserve every sugarcane grower's produce for a particular mill in the neighbourhood was coincidental with his power to fix a price that should be a binding on all sugar mills."

Maintaining that "sugar mills have the capacity to pay Rs. 280 per quintal", Singh said sugar was being sold in the market at Rs. 4,000 per quintal as against Rs. 1,800 last year when mill owners had paid a uniform rate of Rs. 140 a quintal to farmers.

"If sugar mill owners are not ready to concede our demands, let them ensure that the market price of sugar is brought down by at least 25 percent, which can be done if they choose to cut down their unduly high profits."(IANS)