No sugar transhipment in past two months
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 03 2013 : In the after-math of the Government of In- dia's instruction to the States to procure sugar from mills di-rectly or purchase it from open markets for further distribution to public under Public Distri-bution System at subsidised rates, ferrying of sugar into the State has stopped since the past two months.

According to information received from CAF&PD Department, Government of Ma- nipur, sugar currently available at markets was either hoarded away from Government godowns earlier or the traders shipped them in from outside the State at their own capacity.

As for CAF&PD Department, there is not a single grain of sugar left.

Even though the State Government is working to ship in sugar, it would take two or three months before sugar reaches Government godowns at Imphal, said the source.

The Government of India's new measure under which States should procure sugar from mills or purchase it from open markets directly was slated to come into force from the month of June last.

Now the State Government has only 1368 metric tonnes of sugar left with FCI for the month of May which ran into backlog.

The monthly quota for May also got lapsed but the Centre allowed FCI to lift the same quota at the request of the State Government.

Again, FCI could not lift the quota even after the extended period.

Again, the State Govern- ment requested the Centre to give a second chance.

The backlog quota for the month of May is now left aside at Ramnagar godown, Silchar.

The Government of India's new policy for the res- pective States to procure sugar directly from mills would be entrusted to transporters as far as Manipur is concerned.

Subsequently, the State Government is set to initiate due tender process for selection of transporters.

As decided by the Govt of India, sugar should be procured from mills or open markets at Rs 36 per Kg and the same should be distributed to public at the subsidised rate of Rs 13.50 per Kg.

The amount spent by the State Government in paying subsidy which is Rs 22.50 per Kg and the transportation charge would be reimbursed by the Government of India.

However, it sounds impractical as far as Manipur is concerned to distribute sugar to public at Rs 13.50 per Kg for the transporters would be forced to make extra expenditures while shipping sugar up to Imphal.

The price of sugar varied between Rs 20 to Rs 25 per Kg when CAF&PD Department distributed it public after the same commodity was brought in and supplied to the department by FCI as done earlier.

During the same, price of sugar at markets reached up to Rs 40 per Kg, added the source.

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