Sugar industry News

The government has taken a slew of measures to bail out sugar mills as well as cane farmers in the last one year.

The Cabinet, headed by PM Modi, approved Rs 4,440 crore soft loan for building ethanol production capacity to absorb the cane and a buffer stock of 3 million tonnes, besides for the first time fixing Rs 29 per kg as the minimum price below which mills cannot sell sweetener.

The move is aimed at helping loss-making mills and millions of cane growers.

Presently, customs duty on sugar is 50% and that on chana is 30%.

Country's sugar production is estimated to decline by over 9 percent to 256 lakh tonnes in the current marketing year ending September on account of lower sugarcane output.

Emphasising improvement on the liquidity position of sugar industry, government has given 15 more days to banks for disbursing Rs 1,900 crore soft loans to sugar mills.  

Worried at cane arrears to farmers mounting to Rs 21,000 crore, NCP chief and former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar Monday led a delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that the Centre create sugar buffer stock to bail out cash-starved mills.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday said he and NCP president Sharad Pawar will call upon Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to discuss the crisis facing the sugar industry.

Mismatch in the prices of cane and white sugar is causing severe loss to the factories resulting in huge arrears to farmers by the mill owners, says a top official of a sugar company.

The Food Ministry is in favour of extending export subsidy for only 1.4 million tonnes of raw sugar in the ongoing 2014-15 marketing year.

The government is examining cash-starved sugar industry's demand for extending export subsidy on raw sweetener to 2014-15 marketing year, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Wednesday.

In a move that could lead to increase in sugar prices, the government on Friday hiked the import duty on both raw and refined sugar to 25 per cent from the existing 15 percent.

In a move that could lead to rise in the price of sugar, the government on Friday hiked the import duty on it from 15 percent to 25 percent.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the money would go directly into the accounts of farmers so as to avoid any malpractice by the mills.

Sugar marketing year runs from October to September.

Snapping its rising streak, sugar prices fell by 0.63 percent to Rs 3,154 per quintal in futures trading Wednesday as speculators indulged in booking profits.

The government on Monday decided to provide additional interest-free loan of up to Rs 4,400 crore to sugar mills and hike import duty on sweetener to enable the cash-starved industry pay their huge arrears to sugarcane farmers.

Shares of sugar refiners gain after a report that Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has called a second high-level meeting on Monday to discuss ways to bail out the ailing sugar industry.