By Manoj Kushwaha
Narendra Murkumbi in his presidential address at the 77th annual general meeting of the Indian sugar mills association in Delhi said that supplying 26 lakh tons for the PDS at a discounted price caused an annual loss of Rs 3000 crore to the sugar industry.
This affected the earning of the sugar mills that, in turn, affected payments to the cane farmers. It also affected the price of the balance 90% sugar sold in the open market.
K V.Thomas Minister in Union Govt, food and consumer affairs inaugurated the meeting.
The two main challenges facing the sugar industry in the country were rigid regulations and cyclicity in production. Both the problems were interconnected. The sugar production had dropped by a whopping 11.8 million tonns during the last sugar cycle, said Murkumbi
According to Murkumbi , the most important reason responsible for cyclicity in sugarcane and sugar production was not bad weather but extreme delay in the payment of the cane price to the farmers. The delayed payment was causing a big shrinkage of area under sugarcane cultivation. The lack of freedom to work on commercial lines was yet another challenge facing the industry.
The industry had urged the Govt to permit a phase wise reform of the sugarcane & sugar sector. The sugar industry should not be obliged to supply 10% of our production as levy sugar at a discounted price for the PDSs. There were various other controls that needed to be removed.
Murkumbi also said that 2010-11 and 2011-12 had been the two high production years and sustaining it over the next years was a challenge. It was urgent to ensure remunerative price was paid to the farmers as this would motivate them into farming more.
The International Sugar Organization has elected an Indian B. C. Gupta, Secretary Government of India (Food & Public Distribution) as Chairman for the year 2012. India will host the next council & administrative committee meetings of ISO in New Delhi in 2012.