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The Centre on Thursday withdrew the stock disclosure Order on sugar traders, imposed in September 2023, citing there is no need for it now as the country will have comfortable availability of the sweetener.
In a letter to all State governments, the Union Food Ministry has said that it has found that sufficient quantity of sugar is available in the country to meet the domestic demand throughout the year after reviewing prices and availability of sugar in the country.
“It has been decided that the weekly updation of stock of sugar by traders/dealers/wholesaler/big chain retailers/processors is no longer required. Hence, the same may be stopped with immediate effect,” the Ministry said.
Further, the Ministry also informed the States that price, production and availability of sugar in the country will be reviewed periodically and further decision will be taken accordingly.
The All India Sugar Trade Association in September had written to the Food Ministry demanding immediate withdrawal of the stock disclosure order.
In September last year, the Food Ministry had asked sugar mills and traders to furnish details of quantity of sugar sold in each month. “In order to have complete data of sugar stocks with sugar traders, dealers, wholesalers, big retail chains and processors, etc to ensure sufficient availability of sugar at reasonable prices in the country,” the government decided to collect the data according to the order.
The Indian Sugar and Bio-Energy Manufacturers Association (ISMA) has released its first estimate for 2024-25 season (October-September), according to which the net sugar production is likely to be 29.3 million tonnes (mt), lower than 31.96 mt in the previous season. However, due to a carry forward stock of about 8.5 mt (from previous season), the availability of sugar in the domestic market is likely to be comfortable.
India’s sugar consumption was about 29 mt in the entire 2023-24 sugar season, based on the sales allocation data of the government and the industry body expects the consumption to be around 29 mt in current season as well.
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