This refers to Bhupesh Bhandari's column "Sugar, too, banks on Mr Modi (White Knight, May 23). The travails of the sugar industry never seem to end. This is possibly the most politicised industry in India. While politicians in Uttar Pradesh use cane prices to win votes from sugarcane growers, in Maharashtra, the mills are under the control of politicians through co-operatives. For decades, the conflict between farmers who need profitable procurement price, mill-owners who need profit and consumers who need low-cost sugar, has proven impossible to sort out. The industry uses this confusion to seek either government protection such as an import ban and export subsidy, or de-control, depending on the demand-supply situation.
P Datta, Kolkata
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