Hike sugar export quota by another 1 mt: Pawar to PM
Days after the central government imposed restrictions on the export of sugar for the first time in six years by capping this season’s exports at 10 million tonnes (mt), Nationalist Congress Party chief and former Union agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to relax the cap on overseas shipments by 1 mt as production is expected to be higher than earlier estimates.
Pawar also demanded the continuation of sugar export under the open general licence in the new marketing year, starting October.
In a related development, the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF), in a statement on Tuesday, expressed concern that the capping of current year’s export has led to less export release orders issued to co-operatives. It alleged unfair treatment meted out to sugar co-operatives while allocating export quotas after the ban imposed last month.
With a share of around 45 per cent in the total sugar production, co-operatives said although 41 per cent of the total sugar exported in the last three seasons has come from the co-operative sector, it has been allocated just around 47 per cent of fresh export release orders after the ban.
Demanding relaxation in the export quota to allow another 1 mt of export, cooperatives said unless it is permitted,
they will be left with huge unsold inventory.
The co-operative sugar sector — dominant in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka — has a meagre share in the total unpaid cane dues for the 2021-22 season. It was estimated to be around ~17,000 crore until a few days back.
“With the Government of India’s interventions of capping the current year’s sugar export, export release orders issued to co-operative is barely 47 per cent, which, in our opinion, is not in tune with performers vis-à-vis non-performers. The balance 53 per cent raw sugar remaining without export release orders will trigger heavy financial losses. There is no local market for this stock that tends to deteriorate during storage,” said Jaiprakash Dandegaonkar, president of NFCSF, representing 258 co-operative sugar mills and nine co-operative sugar federations across India, in a statement.