(Juhi Aishwary, Journalist): The sugar industry seems to be stuck in a severe economic crisis due to the pandemic of the Covid-19 virus. Due to negligible demand from large consumers, where mills have a huge stock of sugar, there has also been a serious cash crisis. Therefore, the payment of sugarcane to the farmers has been stopped. At the same time, the sugar industry is facing banks for its other expenses. In this difficult time, the sugar industry association has requested the government to pay the outstanding export and buffer stock subsidy of Rs 8000 crores.
The Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) has also written a letter to the central government for immediate payment of subsidy on sugar exports and buffer stocks. According to ISMA Director General Avinash Verma, both the subsidy will be around eight thousand crores, which if paid on time can solve the immediate difficulties of the sugar mills.
UP government gave a detailed description by writing a letter to the center
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government has also written a letter to the Center detailing the difficulties of the sugar mills of the state. Along with this, the state government has demanded to increase the statutory minimum price of sugar from Rs 31 per kg to Rs 34 per kg. The NITI Aayog has also recommended an immediate increase in the minimum price of sugar to Rs 2 per kg in one of its recent recommendations.
Large consumers stop consuming sugar due to lockdown
According to ISMA, the bulk consumers have stopped consuming sugar due to the lockdown. Among them, the operations of sweet makers, chocolate makers, and cold drinks production companies have come to a complete standstill. So, these days the demand for sugar has not been equal, due to which about 1.5 million tons of sugar has not been sold. Due to this, the cash mills of sugar mills got stuck at about Rs 5000 croreS. However, the industry body is hopeful that after the opening of the lockdown, there will be good demand in the market. But the present crisis is starting to get serious. Sugar mills of Uttar Pradesh have demanded a variety of facilities from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Sugar mills of the state have been owed more than Rs 14 Haj crore to sugarcane farmers. The mills have an overstock of sugar, due to which storage problem has arisen. Similarly, oil companies are not picking up Ethanol.
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