Cabinet defers Pawar’s plan on sugar decontrol

New Delhi, August 8 : The much anticipated sugar decontrol plan put forward by Food Minister and NCP leader Sharad Pawar was shot down in the Cabinet on Friday by Congress heavyweights Pranab Mukherjee and A K Antony along with Vyalar Ravi. Following this, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who chaired the meeting, deferred a decision on the matter.

“The Cabinet deferred taking a decision on the sugar decontrol issue today,” Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said after the meeting.

Currently, the Government issues an order every month as to how much sugar a mill can sell in the open market. In addition, under the levy system the sugar mills are required to sell 10 per cent of its production to the Centre on a fixed price for public distribution system (PDS).

The approval for decontrol would have meant that the Government would have to buy sugar from the open market for the requirement under PDS.

While Antony raised reservations on the proposal pointing out difficulties the defence forces would face in purchasing sugar from the open market, Mukherjee expressed his reservations citing that the country needed to send sugar to Bhutan from the central pool and it would be difficult for his ministry to purchase it from the open market.

While these were mere token objections, both the ministers are learnt to have objected to unsettling the existing framework that has served the PDS in the past few decades.

Pranab did not want the status quo to change at the fag end of the Government’s tenure when Inflation is on an upswing.

Apart from Pawar, the sugar industry has also been arguing for decontrol for a long time, saying it is necessary to improve their bottomline.

Also in Cabinet

• The Cabinet decided to bring an amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act, making it compulsory for agencies to obtain sanction before prosecuting retired Government servants.

• The Right to Education Bill that envisages free and compulsory education for every child aged between 6 and 14 was referred to a Group of Ministers (GoM).

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