)
Shares of sugar manufacturers are in demand and trading higher by up to 10% on the BSE on media reports that the government is likely to subsidise the production of ethanol for blending with petrol.
Bajaj Hindusthan is up 10%, Balrampur Chini Mills has jumped 10%, Dhampur Sugar has climbed 8% and Shree Renuka has surged nearly 9%.
Bajaj Hindusthan is up 10%, Balrampur Chini Mills has jumped 10%, Dhampur Sugar has climbed 8% and Shree Renuka has surged nearly 9%.
The prime minister's office (PMO), in consultation with the food ministry, is working on sorting some of the contentious issues which repeatedly plunged the sugar sector into a crisis.
The idea is to resolve the issue of extending the raw sugar export incentive and ethanol blending programme to ensure equitable benefits to all the stakeholders - millers, consumers and farmers.
Exports will, however, bring relief to the industry only if the government increases the export incentive of Rs 3,300 a tonne available last season in line with falls in world sugar prices. The most actively traded March raw sugar contract at the Intercontinental Exchange is now at 16.36 cents a pound, way below the February 2011 rate of 36.08 cents.
Earlier, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs decided to implement the mixing of five per cent ethanol in petrol, saving approximately 100 crore litres of fuel every year.
