UP private sugar mills receive soft loans worth Rs 2,916 crore

In a sweetener to the sugar sector in Uttar Pradesh, the state government has provided additional soft loans of above Rs 300 crore to cash-strapped private sugar mills for speedy payments to cane farmers.

Last year, the state had announced the Rs 4,000-crore package to help private millers tide over the precarious payments situation. This was after banks put the domestic sugar sector in the negative list, owing to subdued market outlook on account of a glut and low retail prices. The UP government had made the budgetary allocation in its first supplementary Budget of 2018-19.

However, only Rs 2,610