Centre may wait for sugar prices to correct before doling out sops

The Centre has announced since December a series of measures to stop sugar prices from dropping sharply due to a bumper harvest, but it has not met with much success. Cane arrears have topped over Rs 160 billion as of March 31.

From doubling import duty to fixing the quota of sugar that mills can sell in the open-market, the government has tried it all.

A few weeks ago, it fixed a compulsory export quota of 2 million tonnes (mt) that mills have to ship in the next few months to part absorb the surplus. 

The government also allowed the export of white