The union minister of state for food and civil supplies K V Thomas assured the problem-ridden Maharashtra cooperative sugar industry that the empowered group of ministers would take a decision on sugar exports at its meeting slated for Monday. He admitted that the decision to export 500,000 tonnes of sugar under open general license has been kept in abeyance but assured that decision is expected at Monday’s meeting.
A delegation led by the state cooperation minister Harshvardhan Patil and Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, chairman of the Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories in Maharashtra during their meeting with the minister of state for food and civil supplies K V Thomas argued that sugar exports are necessary in a serious bid to boost up market confidence and arrest the dwindling domestic realisation and also to take advantage of the encouraging international scenario.
State cooperation minister Harshvardhan Patil told Business Standard: “We are thankful to the Centre for having issued factory-wise allocation of export quantity totalling 500,000 tonnes under OGL on January 1. However, we brought to the minister’s notice that so far no release orders have been issued and hence the actual export has not commenced as yet. International prices which had peaked to $850 a tonne have now gone down to $725 a tonne. This slide in international prices is most likely going to intensify with the new arrival of sugar from Brazil and Thailand from March onwards.”
Moreover, the sugar industry called upon the minister for the imposition of 60 per cent import duty on imported sugar (both white and raw) with immediate effect. Mohite-Patil said there is no need for any imports at zero per cent import duty in view of comfortable availability of sugar during 2010-11 wherein the estimated sugar production of 24.5 million tonnes. Besides there is an opening stock of 4.5 million tonnes. Therefore, he added that there would be a total sugar availability of 29 million tonnes against the anticipated domestic consumption of 23 million tonnes.
Mohite-Patil also appealed for the withdrawal of import permission given to industrial bulk buyers in June 2009. “In light of expected comfortable availability of sugar in the country, there is a need for withdrawal of import permission to industrial bulk buyers whose share in the domestic sugar consumption is almost 70 per cent,” he noted.
Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the federation said the delegation also pressed the need for an early settlement of sugar export subsidy claim of Rs 190 crore. “Maharashtra sugar mills had positively responded in exporting 1.5 million tonnes in 2006-07 and 2.9 million tonnes in 2007-08 and had availed the sugar export subsidy. However, settlement of these accounts was not possible because export subsidy was pending,” he added. Early settlement of subsidy claims would enable mills to close the accounts and these amounts would come in handy for timely settlement of cane payments.
The cooperation minister informed that the delegation also emphasised the need for timely revision of levy sugar prices. Patil said “We requested the Centre to announce levy sugar prices before the commencement of the crushing season which would enable mills to close their accounts at the end of season and also monitor proper cash flows.”