Cheaper sugar in a week, assures Govt

The UPA government has been under attack for the past few weeks over spiralling prices of essential commodities like sugar and pulses. The food inflation has been shooting up as a result of sugar touching Rs 50 per kg and pulses ruling around Rs 90 per kg in open market, making a simple meal of “dal-roti” an expensive affair for the common man.

To make matters worse, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told a TV channel the other day rather callously that he was not an astrologer to predict when the sugar prices will come down. Reducing sugar content was good for health, another minister sermonized to complaining consumers.

But wisdom seemed to have dawned at last on the government. On Jan 13, it took a slew of measures to increase the availability of sugar, pulses and other commodities and hoped rates of the sweetenerwould start declining in a week’s time. To increase the availability of sugar, the government relaxed the norms for processing of raw sugar and allowed duty-free import of white sugar till December-end.
A host of decisions, including selling of 2-3 million tonnes of wheat and rice in the open market over the next two months and asking State-owned trading firms to intensify import of pulses, was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Prices chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told reporters that the Prime Minister would convene a Chief Ministers’ meeting in the last week of this month to discuss prices situation and take stern action against hoarders. Pawar also charged that state governments were not lifting the wheat and rice stocks made available to them by the central government.

"We have made sizeable allocations of wheat and rice to the states but sufficient amounts have not been lifted," he pointed out, adding that of the two million tonnes of wheat that had been allocated, only 159,000 tonnes had been lifted, while only 209,000 tonnes of the one million tonnes of rice that had been allocated had been lifted. States had been told to take stern action against hoarders of food. Additionally, steps will be taken to check smuggling of sugarcane and sugar from India to Nepal, he said.

Pawar also announced a major relaxation of norms for the import of raw sugar, saying it could be refined anywhere in the country and not only by the mill that had imported it.

"To expedite the refining of raw sugar and improve availability in the market, the government has relaxed the central excise rules to enable its processing in mills in any state," he said. He said the waiver had been granted as "a number of sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh had imported raw sugar for processing. However, the bulk of sugar, around nine million tonnes, was still lying in Kandla and Mundra ports in view of restrictions by the Uttar Pradesh government on the movement of raw sugar.

The Centre may increase the subsidy on imported edible oil from the prevailing rate of Rs 15 a kg. The subsidy scheme for public distribution of imported edible oil under the States will continue till October 31, 2010. It was to earlier lapse on March 31.Cooperative major Nafed and the National Consumer Cooperative Federation (NCCF) will be authorised to distribute subsidised imported oil and pulses in States that are not implementing the scheme.

- Asian Tribune -