Charter of Demands From Communities engaged in Sugar Cane Cutting in State of Maharashtra

India is the second largest sugar producing country and Maharashtra is one of the largest in the Country. Sugar industry in the State provides direct employment to 0.16 million workers, besides over 1.5 million workers get employed in cane cutting, loading and transportation. This itself says a lot about importance of Sugar industry in the State. This document is a result of various discussions conducted with migrant cane cutters from 3 districts, namely Ahmad Nagar, Beed and Osmanabad in Maharashtra. Through the discussion we tried to reach out to diverse set of respondents that includes groups of females, schedule caste, Schedule Tribes, OBC and general social groups of respondents to understand their challenges while engaging as cane cutters. Overall, more than 20 such FGD’s were conducted across all 3 districts with an average participation of 12 to 15 members in each of the discussion. Besides number of individual interviews conducted with community members in 40 villages across Beed and Osmanabad districts.

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