The festive season is here again but the owners of sweetmeat shops do not appear to be a happy lot. The new government notification is acting as a dampener on their spirits.

Popular sweets joint Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwala that makes around 45 different types of sweets is trying to stave off the potential adverse fallout of the Sugar Control Act, recently notified by the government. “The order says we will be able to stock only half of the average monthly requirement of sugar. But during festive seasons we require more than our average monthly requirement. We are wondering what problems we will face once the order comes into force on September 11,” said S R Chitale, one of the owners.

The order says that users consuming more than 10 quintals of sugar will not be able to stock more than half of their ‘monthly average requirement’. On an average, Chitale uses around 110 quintals of sugar a month, but this goes up to 200 quintals during festival seasons.

The newly declared stock limit for sugar has been a cause of concern for several companies across the country. FICCI representatives said calculation of this sugar limit was one of the key issues that they had taken up with the government on behalf of the industry.

“The requirement increases dramatically during the festival season. If the chartered accountant certifies a company’s requirement of sugar according to its average monthly use, then their 15 days’ stock may get exhausted in less than 10 days during peak festival seasons. Companies would then be short of stock,” said Sameer Barde, deputy director, FICCI. “We have asked the government that the stock limits be decided based on the installed capacity of a unit. Companies could stock sugar based on their full installed capacity,” he said.

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