52 lt sugar available for open market sale in Q3

The Centre has released 44 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar to be offloaded by mills as their free sale quota (FSQ) for the current October-December quarter. This is higher than the 42 lt of FSQ allocated during the same period last year.

But apart from the normal 44 lt FSQ, there is going to be availability of an additional six lt from the now dismantled second buffer stock of 30 lt earlier sequestered from mills on Government account. Besides, there is about two lt of unsold/un-despatched stock carried over from September, which mills will have to now liquidate before October 15.

So, in all, 52 lt of sugar would be available for sale in the open market during October-December. Of this, 21 lt is for October (15 lt FSQ plus four lt dismantled buffer plus two lt carryover), 16 lt for November (15 lt FSQ plus one lt dismantled buffer) and 15 lt for December (14 lt FSQ plus one lt dismantled buffer).

The Centre had earlier also made an allocation of 2.27 lt of levy sugar (to be sold through the public distribution system), which includes a festival quota of 57,000 tonnes. The aggregate sugar availability for October, then, works out to 23.27 lt, “which is sufficient to meet the normal and festival demand for the month,” according to a Food Ministry statement released here.

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