Pawar accepts sugar imports unavoidable

Even as the government battles hard to rein in rising sugar prices in the domestic market ahead of the festival season...

Even as the government battles hard to rein in rising sugar prices in the domestic market ahead of the festival season,Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday said the country had no option but to rely on sugar imports to meet its domestic requirements in the current year.

As per the initial estimates for the 2009-10 sugar season,the country will require to supplement its domestic availability of sugar with imports, Pawar said,adding that the next sugar season in October would have a much smaller opening balance as compared to the comfortable 10 million tonne stock last year.

Years 2006-08 were surplus and we exported around six million tonne. But the international sugar prices fell drastically causing losses to our sugar mills. Now that we are required to import sugar,the international prices are continuously increasing, Pawar said about the difficult choice before the country.

Pawars statement came even as the Empowered Group of Ministers EGoM headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee discussed the issue of bargaining with the private sugar units for additional levy quota of 10 per cent in lieu of higher levy prices ahead of the festival season.

Though there was no formal announcement after the meeting,given the imposition of the model code of conduct for Assembly elections in three states,the meeting is learnt to have discussed the modalities for increasing the levy quota from the current 10 per cent to 20 per cent with a hike of levy price from the current average of Rs 13.50 to Rs 20 a kg. The government hopes to get additional quantity of sugar from private industry to supply through PDS during the festival season.

Meanwhile,the government is staring at a difficult situation with sugarcane production also expected to fall marginally next year due to the deficient monsoon. Even last year,sugarcane production had declined substantially from 348.18 million tonne in 2007-08 to 271.25 million tonne.