Sugar mills will now get more time to sell the unsold December sale quota of the commodity.

The Union Government on Thursday extended the time period to sell the December sale quota by a month till January 31, 2022.

In a notification on Thursday, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said the time period for December sale was being extended as mills/traders were facing the logistics issues to lift the quota allocated for the month of December 2021.

The Ministry had allocated 21.5 lakh tonnes (lt) of monthly sale sugar quota for December 2021 to 558 sugar mills.

“In order to facilitate the dispatch of the remaining unsold quantity of December quota thereby improving the liquidity of sugar mills enabling them to clear the cane price dues of farmers; it has been decided to extend the time period for the monthly sale quota of sugar for December, 2021 by one month till Jan 31, 2022,” the Directorate of Sugar and Vegetable Oils under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs said in a notification.

Welcoming the government’s decision, Prakash P Naiknavare, Managing Director, National Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories Ltd, said the extension of sale period will ease the pressure on the mills to sell. “Lesser the pressure, better for the mills as they can plan their sales spread over till January end,” he said.

Output up

Sugar production in the ongoing 2021-22 season has been on the higher side till December 15 on early start to the crushing season in the western part of the country.

According to the Indian Sugar Mills Association, sugar production till December 15, 2021 stood higher at 77.91 lt — about 4.57 lt more than the same period last year.

About 479 mills had started crushing operations in the current season till December 15 against 460 in the same period previous year.

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