Despite umpteen attempts by sugar industries to make government agree to allow export of sugar, the matter continues to hang fire so far. It was said that GoM will sit last week and give green signal to this proposal but the political development arising out of DMK withdrawal from the government has pushed the agenda of export clearance further on the back burner.
The rotting food grain issue ultimately forced the government to allow the export of food grains but such pressing need is not felt by the government in case of sugar export. Who loses here is the poor sugar cane growers mostly confined to Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
Credit indeed goes to Sharad Pawar who has tried his level best to expedite the issue of sugar export by exhorting his colleague in the Union Cabinet for the same. But first budget and than this southern bombshell in the shape of DMK withdrawal has kept the government busy catching its breath.
Pawar was emphatic last week that GoM will sit this week to solve the issue but alas his clout does not carry the weight the way it used to do once upon a time.
Meanwhile, international prices of sugar have surged from $690 a tonne to $760 a tonne making the local exporters jittery at the thought of “potential profit” they might would have made.
Industry people say that the Centre should take the decision of exporting 500,000 tonnes at the earliest. Subsequently, the Centre needs to allow exports of 1 million tonnes in the next two months.
According to one estimate India may not achieve sugar output target of 25 million tonnes but will be able to reach between 22.5 million tonnes and 24.5 million tonnes.
The next meeting of GoM is yet not fixed and the DMK imbroglio may take a while for the government to take a call on sugar export.