Sugar barons in sugar-producing belt of the country have always used sugar as an instrument of their political persuasions. It is rather difficult to understand the mechanism they employ to make maximum mileage out of their control of sugar production and distribution activity. It is a complicated politico-economic matter and only those who deal with it are aware of its ins and outs. Nevertheless, it has become evident that our State may have to go without subsidized sugar for a month or two till things become clear at the distribution level. Our apprehensions have come true and now it is learnt that for next two months the State will be deprived of subsidized sugar which means that the people not able to afford sugar in open market will have to go without it.
However the State Government did make a move to overcome the difficulty and appointed a committee to examine the possibility of buying sugar in open market for public distribution. According to reports available, the Committee in question has conducted its business and invited tenders from suppliers so as to choose the lowest bid. Now we understand that this process also takes its own time and at east 21 days are required before the tenders are filled by prospective bidders. In any case for other one or two months the situation of sugar supply will be adversely affected.
Amarnth yatra is on and a large number of pilgrims are expected to undertake the pilgrimage. Non availability of sugar will cause hardship to them also besides the people in general. We are not able to figure out what option is there with the Government to overcome this difficulty. Even when sugar is purchased in open market, its price will not be within the budget of ordinary citizen of the State. We are not aware if the Government plans to take recourse to subsidizing the price of sugar purchased in open market till the time levy sugar is made available. Again the question is whether levy sugar will be available or not in future. According to the information trickling down from sources close to sugar barons, they are not prepared to let sugar prices be reduced because they already have said that the cost of production has gone up besides other things. In such a situation, nothing can be done except to wait and watch what direction the sugar supply issue takes at the end of the day.
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