<b>Letters:</b> Sugar rush

The sugar industry's problems refuse to go away. Several governments have been unable to find the golden mean that gives a good price to the cane growers, a tidy profit to the sugar mills and affordable cost to the consumers. All three groups count a lot in terms of votes and donations to parties. The proposals now being forwarded by the millers - import duty on raw sugar, export subsidy, loan waiver or restructure, an increase in mandatory ethanol mixing, buffer stock owned by government - haven't worked in the past. They are market-distorting methods of passing the burden indirectly to the consumers through higher prices, and to the government in terms of loan-waivers or the carrying cost of the buffer stock. In any event, a buffer stock can help solve one year's problem, not the structural one.

Farmers have got hooked on to what is called a lazy man's crop with a guaranteed offtake and good price. Industry has compounded its problems by a breakneck spell of expansion, since sugar does still offer the possibility of "cash income" in times of scarcity. The enduring solution lies in improving efficiency of both cane farming and sugar mills, and reducing the number of mills leading to a reduction in sugar cane acreage.

P Datta Kolkata

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