Coming to the rescue of private sugar mill owners Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to increase subsidy on sugar export and hike import tax on raw sugar from existing 25 per cent to 40 per cent. “Sugar industry in Uttar Pradesh is passing through a very bad phase. As the prices of sugar in the open market has come down millers are not getting good remunerative price of their produce. This is affecting their paying capacity and are not able to pay to the cane farmers,” Yadav said in his letter which was released to the press on Thursday.
He said the Union Government should increase the subsidy on raw sugar export to Rs 4000 per ton so that mills could export their sugar to other countries. Chief Minister also demanded that this subsidy should be extended to those millers who are exporting minimum 20 lakh ton sugar. He also suggested that Union Government should increase the import duty on raw sugar from existing 25 per cent to 40 per cent. “This decision will prevent import of raw sugar from countries like Brazil and Pakistan and in turn help the domestic sugar millers,” Chief Minister said.
The tone and tenor of the letter will sound music to the ears of private sugar mill owners in Uttar Pradesh as they have shown their inability to pay cane dues to farmers. They argued that as the price of sugar in retail market has come down they are not getting a good return. Moreover, availability of cheap raw sugar from other countries has created an imbalance in the market.
Yadav wrote in his letter that despite concessions given to the private millers they are in no position to clear the cane dues. “This is creating a piquant situation in UP. On one hand farmers are not getting remunerative price while on the other mills are going in the red,” wrote Chief Minister. He said private millers have cleared 96.22 per cent of the dues for the crushing session of 2013-14 while for the current fiscal of 2014-15 just 62.33 per cent dues have been cleared. “Until corrective steps are taken the sugar industry in UP would face a big crisis,” he said.