Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey has ruled out hike in the minimum selling price of sugar from current Rs 31 per kg as domestic rates are higher and expressed confidence that exports will touch 50-60 lakh tonnes in the current marketing year starting October. Pandey pointed out that ethanol blending with petrol touched 8.1 per cent during 2020-21 as against the target of 8.5 per cent and stressed on achieving the 10 per cent target in the current year. He asked sugar mills to invest in creating storage capacity for ethanol so that they can supply the green fuel to OMCs on a regular basis.
Pandey highlighted the government came to the rescue of the sugar industry, which was facing liquidity issues few years back because of surplus production and depressed price. He said ‘We have seen that the direct export support in last about five-six years is roughly about Rs 13,000 crore directly to the industry. And matter did not end there. Buffer stock support...was also being given by the government. When the prices were crashing, then the minimum selling price (MSP) concept was introduced to arrest the falling prices. That was also a big support to the industry at that time’.
As a result, Pandey said the exports rose to around 70 lakh tonnes in 2020-21 marketing year (October-September) from roughly about 6.3 lakh tonnes in 2017-18. For the current 2021-22 season, the secretary said that almost 35 lakh tonnes of sugar has already been contracted for exports. The production in Brazil will be less. He said ‘We should touch between 50 and 60 lakh tonnes (exports) this year’ Pandey emphasised on the need to balance India's sugar production as per the requirement of the global market. Around 20 lakh tonnes of sugar got diverted during 2020-21 for ethanol production and the number is likely to increase to 35 lakh tonnes this year.
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