Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said that the government is considering additional sops to the sugar industry in the wake of record output and fall in prices."We have increased buffer stocks from 20 lakh to 50 lakh tonne. There is a committee which will report in a next couple of days about rescheduling of debt and we can look at some other options," Chidambaram said in an interview to CNBC television channel in London.He said the government is in discussions with the sugar industry on further relief measures. "We are looking into it," he added.While the Cabinet had recently raised the buffer stock of sugar to 50 lakh tonne after a record production this year, it had deferred a decision on extending the moratorium on debt taken by sugar mills for a period up to March 2010.Chidambaram said had the government known output in the current season would be 275 lakh tonne, it would have taken a decision to lift ban on exports of the sweetener a lot earlier."Earlier estimates put sugar production at 190-210 lakh tonne. Therefore, the government took a decision not to allow exports in December 2006. Now estimates put production at 275 lakh tonne, if we knew of these estimates, we could have lifted the ban on exports even before December," he said.
