With jute workers on strike,polypropylene bags come to the rescue of sugar mills

Polypropylene bags are used as packaging material for packing foodgrains all over the world,but it is mandatory in India to use jute bags for the same.

GSCSF Managing Director Arjun Patel said jute bags are expensive compared to polypropylene bags and add to production cost of the sugar mills.

A jute bag with a 100 kg capacity costs Rs 75 compared to a propylene bags of the same capacity which costs around Rs 25.

The federation can save huge amount by switching over to propylene bags from jute bags,Patel added.

The federation uses more than 1.5 crore jute bags annually,he said. “The use of polypropylene bags will add to our profit by saving expenditure on packing,” said Patel.

An official further said that the federation was not violating the Central government’s orders of mandatory jute bag packaging. The Centre had allowed the use of polypropylene bags on a temporary basis till the situation in the jute mills normalise and the bags are available in adequate quantity,he said.

The jute mill workers are demanding job security,payment of dearness allowance arrears and removal of anomalies in payments of provident fund,gratuity and bonus.

‘Ban on futures trading not to affect prices’

Further extension of the ban on futures trading in sugar till September 2010 will not have any effect on the price,according to the sugar manufacturers and dealers.

They said,the Union Agriculture Ministry had imposed the ban on futures trading in sugar six month ago,but the prices still skyrocketed.

Prices of sugar jumped from Rs 25 per kg to Rs 40 in the last one and a half years.

According to them,the prices will depend on production. Arjun Patel said the wholesale prices had fluctuated by Rs 300 per quintal in the last 10 days.

It rose from Rs 3,300 per quintal to Rs 3,600 per quintal,he said.

According to Patel,the Union government imported 30 lakh tones of sugar in the last three months,yet the prices did not go down as more than 70 per cent of it was consumed by soft drink manufacturers and hardly 27 per cent by domestic consumers.

One of the biggest sugar merchants of the state,Atul Shah of Bharat Sugar Agencies said the production of sugarcane was less last year,prompting sharp rise in prices of the commodity. Though the ban on futures trading controlled the prices to some extent,but the fall in production of the commodity was mainly responsible for the price rise,he said,adding that the government should go for further import for stabilising the price.