Cost Price Analysis in Sugarcane

A Study in Tamil Nadu, Southern India

Abstract

Indian sugar industry has a unique, intrinsic and symbolic relationship with the livelihood of the rural masses and contributes around 2 per cent to the national gross domestic product. It employs over 40 million cane growers and their families, constituting 7 per cent of the rural population and about 3.5 lakh skilled and unskilled labourers. As a raw material, sugarcane is transported from farms to sugar mills and hence the service sector like transportation is getting developed in addition to rural road development. Sugarcane is the basic raw material for gur making, and gur making is one of the important cottage industries that provides employment to the rural folk, particularly in harvesting, transporting by head load to crushing unit from the field, crushing and gur preparation. Thus, the sugar industry as a whole helps in uplifting the lives of the rural masses. Being the second largest agro-based industry, only next to cotton, it plays a dominant role in promoting the development of both agricultural and industrial economies of the country