India is expected to discuss easing controls on the sugar sector in a meeting in next 8-10 days, The Economic Times reported on Monday citing Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, as domestic output prospects of the sweetener improves and as local prices fall.
"Sugar is the only sector in which restrictions are still there. The thinking process has started and some pragmatic decision is expected to be taken," the report quoted Pawar as saying at a sugar industry meet in Pune.
India, the world's top sugar consumer and the largest producer after Brazil, decides the quantity mills can sell, buys 10-20% of mills' output at lower rates for subsidised sale to the poor and sets the price mills must pay for cane to farmers.
The industry is upbeat as it viewed the minister's comment as the first phase towards easing of tight government controls.
"In the first phase, the government may remove the obligation of levy quota and the regulated release mechanism," the report quoted the director general of the Indian Sugar Mills Association Abinash Verma as saying.
"This is the best time to decontrol the sugar sector as production prospects appear good," Vinay Kumar, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, a producers' body of 250 mills, told Reuters.
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