Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has said that the government is yet to take a call on extending sops for overseas sale of sugar in the 2014/15 marketing year that started in October. Though, the minister had earlier said that the government is open to extending export subsidy on raw sugar but the things are being contemplated in the current marketing year amid fall in global prices, making the exports unviable. Meanwhile, some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including Australia, the European Union, Pakistan, have raised questions over India's export subsidy on sugar.
The subsidy scheme which ended in September 2014 was actually started by the previous government in February this year, with the government announcing a subsidy for exports of raw sugar up to 4 million tonnes in order to help the cash-starved industry clear sugarcane arrears to farmers. The subsidy was originally fixed at Rs 3,300 per tonne for February-March and it was decided to review the quantum of subsidy every two months.
The Incentive was reduced to Rs 2,277 per tonne for April-May but was reinstated at Rs 3,300 per tonne for June- July and for August-September the subsidy was hiked to Rs 3,371 per tonne. The subsidy were mainly to clear the sugarcane arrears and in this regard the minister has stated that the total sugarcane arrears to farmers in the country till November 18 this year have come down to Rs 4,300 crore from Rs 14,095 crore in May-end. The government has pegged overall output at 250.5 lakh tonnes for this season, while Isma has predicted 250-255 lakh tonnes.