New Delhi: Officials of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) on Thursday, February 29, met Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra, Sugar Joint Secretary (Sugar) Aswani Srivastava, Chief Sugar Director Sangeet Singla and officials of the sugar department and discussed the problems being faced by the sugar mills and the entire sugar industry in the country. They explained them the issues in detail while drawing their attention to how the sudden restrictions on ethanol production, is leading to the financial crisis in the sugar industry.
Considering the prolonged season of sugarcane crushing in Maharashtra and its impact on the sugar recovery, they said, approximately 18 lakh tonnes of surplus sugar remain at the end of the season, needed to be used in the ethanol production. They also pointed out that the surplus stock of B molasses remaining with the factories, could be used for juice/syrup. The NFCSF also pointed out that the new rates of ethanol produced from this, have not been announced yet.
The Central government’s decision to sell at least 90 percent of the quota of sugar from February is affecting the price of sugar in the market which has fallen by Rs 250 per quintal. Besides, the participation of traders in the tender, has decreased. As a result, the full quota given at the end of February has not been sold. Keeping all this in mind, the officials requested them to relax the 90 percent sale restriction.
The central government has fixed the minimum selling price of sugar from February 2019 at Rs. 31 per kg but in the subsequent five years the price of sugarcane has been increasing every year. Therefore, it was presented to them with statistics that it is urgent to increase the minimum selling price of sugar to pay the increased rate to the farmers in time and in full. It was asserted that the increase in the rate of sugar is logically correct. They said the sugar price could be linked to the price of sugarcane as per the condition 4 of the central government’s Sugar Price Control Order. Accordingly, sugar price could be Rs 40 per kg. Even the CACP in its report, justified it.
NFCSF requested that the Central Government should think about starting a “Sugar Reserve Stock Scheme” in order to get the sugar industry out of the current situation.
According to the NFCSF, all the above issues have been heard and understood by the Central officials and they said that they will try to see how it would be resolved.
Under the leadership and guidance of the new President of the NFCSF, Harshvardhan Patil, the National Sugar Federation has started working to help the sugar industry in a very fast manner. It can be seen when Patil led the team of new board of directors of the NFCSF, to the Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah at his residence in New Delhi, shortly after his election. The NFCSF has decided to hold future meetings of the board of directors in various states and to meet the member sugar factories in those states/divisions to understand their problems. Along with that, meetings are also planned with Union Food Minister, Union Finance Minister, and Union Home/Cooperation Minister.
