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BPL families to get more sugar during festival
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Tuesday, 08 September, 2009, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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The below poverty line (BPL) families will get 2 kg more sugar from the PDS during the Dasara festival at the end of September. But for Diwali which falls in October, the government is likely to raise the issue price of sugar from the present Rs 13.50 to Rs 15 a kg. An empowered group of ministers (EGoM), headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, discussed the sugar crisis last week and decided to supply 2 kg more sugar to the BPL families during the Dasara festival which falls in the last week of September. The EGoM also proposed to raise the price of levy sugar, the 10% of the sweetener sold to the government by the mills for distribution through PDS, to Rs 15 per kg from the existing Rs13.50 a kg.
Sugar mills now may have to sell more levy sugar to the government from the present 10% to 20%. Mills have agreed in principle to supply more under the levy sugar but have been demanding Rs 20-22 a kg for the levy sugar and Rs 30-32 for the open market sale. The government, however, plans to raise the price to about Rs 2,020 per quintal as the average ex-factory price.
The retail price of sugar has touched Rs 32-35 per kg from Rs 18-20 a year ago and is expected to go up further to Rs 40 during the festival. In the wholesale market medium sugar quality (M-30) firmed up at Rs 3,380 per quintal from Rs 3,120 a quintal. Small sugar quality (S-30) touched Rs 3,280 from Rs 3,010. With production set to hit a three-year low of 14.7 million tonnes this sugar season, stockists are on a buying spree in spot markets across the country in anticipation of a sharp rise in prices in the coming months.
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