Decision To Completely Decontrol Sugar Soon

The ministry has studied the recommendations of the committee to completely decontrol sugar and discontinue supplying it through the public distribution system (PDS), Prasad said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

At the end of the current sugar season (October-September), India is likely to have an excess stock of 96.39 lakh tonne, minister of state for PDS, Sriram Chauhan, said in reply to another question.

He added that the availability of domestic sugar in the current season, including the carry over stock of 67.23 lakh tonne, was expected to be around 247.23 lakh tonne, compared to the total domestic demand of 150.84 lakh tonne.

 

The central pool has an excess stock of 134.57 lakh tonne of wheat as on July 1, Chauhan said. The pool has 277.57 lakh tonne of wheat as against the buffer stock norms of 143 lakh tonne, he added.

Kerosene: The Centre has asked states to identify ration card holders with LPG connection to discontinue their kerosene supply through the PDS, Chauhan said. He said the distribution of kerosene and its monitoring was the responsibility of the state governments.

Garments: Minister of state for small-scale industries Vasundhara Raje said dereservation of the garments sector from the SSI list was under the consideration of the ministry.

She said employment and productivity will be the most important consideration of the government while taking a decision whether to dereserve the sector. Raje said the government was finalising a comprehensive policy for the SSI sector.

The SSI sector in India has enough resilience to withstand the impact of phasing out quantitative restrictions beyond April 2001, she said.

The ministry has engaged Arthur Andersen to restructure the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, Raje said. The consultancy firm will give its report to the government by October and the latter will hold discussions with all shareholders in the commission before acting on the report.