The Cabinet on Wednesday authorized an help of Rs 3,500 crore for exports of six million tonne of sugar in the existing promoting year via September 2021 to reduce a glut in the domestic market place and support money-strapped mills clear dues to cane farmers.
This subsidy quantity, on the other hand, will be straight credited into the accounts of cane farmers against outstanding dues of mills. It also cleared an allocation of Rs 5,361 crore towards subsidy for the final promoting year (2019-20), when it had announced an export help of Rs 10,448 per tonne.
Cane arrears carried forward from the final promoting year stood at a record Rs 3,500 crore. The Cabinet choice also coincides with the agitation led by farmers in the national Capital against 3 farm Bills of the Centre.
The most up-to-date move will catalyse exports of `18,000 crore (which includes the subsidy quantity) in the 2020-21 promoting year. It will advantage about 5 crore farmers and their dependents, and 5 lakh workers employed in the sugar sector, details and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar mentioned soon after the Cabinet meeting.
This subsidy aims to cover sugar mills’ promoting expenses, which includes handling, upgrading and other processing charges, expenses of international and internal transport, and freight charges on exports, topic to the cap of six million tonne, in the existing promoting year.
Against their mandatory target of six million tonne set for 2019-20, mills had shipped out 5.7 million tonne. India, the world’s second-biggest sugar producer, was forced to extend export subsidies in the previous two years to allow mills to trim record inventory, triggered by successive years of surplus production, and clear cane dues to farmers.
Hailing the Cabinet choices, Abinash Verma, director common of the Indian Sugar Mills’ Association, mentioned it will support minimize the country’s sugar stocks to 9.6 million tonne by October 1, 2021, from 10.7 million tonne in the starting of this promoting year. This will also enhance the sugar realisation of mills.
“Even though two-and-a-half months of the current season is over, considering that several large importing countries have been enquiring about Indian sugar and also considering that the drop in sugar production from Thailand gives an opportunity to India to export to traditional markets like Indonesia, Malaysia etc., our sugar industry should be able to fulfill the target of 6 million tonne of exports in 2020-21,” Verma mentioned.