Unnecessary intervention

Allowing duty-free imports of sugar was not required

The government’s decision to allow duty-free import of 500,000 tonnes of raw sugar makes little sense. Even while making this announcement, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan asserted that enough sugar was available to take care of consumption needs. As recently as mid-March, the total availability of sugar in the current year was around 28 million tonnes, including the opening stock of 7.7 million tonnes, against the anticipated requirement of 24 to 25 million tonnes. Clearly, the year will end with a surplus sugar stock of over 4 million tonnes. Even if the sugar industry’s revised output estimate of 20.3 million