Sugar mill owners on Sunday offered to supply the Punjab government with the good for a price of Rs140 per kg as a crackdown on sugar hoarders to stop artificial price increases has started to make progress.
The offer was made a day after the provincial government asked the Lahore High Court to reverse a status quo ruling it had made months earlier that restricted the province’s ability to set sugar prices.
The nationwide crackdown on the sugar mafia, which resulted in the arrest of numerous hoarders and the seizure of hundreds of tonnes of the commodity, has slowed the increase in sugar prices. Instead, in some cities and towns, prices are significantly declining.
The administrative action against hoarding has caused the price of sugar, which had risen to Rs235 per kg in Chaman and other Balochistan towns’ retail markets, to drop to Rs180 per kg. In Karachi, over the past three days, a decrease in price of Rs 15 per kg has been noted. In various towns in Punjab, it is being sold for between Rs170 and Rs180 per kg.
The millers will provide sugar at Rs140 per kg under the agreement, which was revealed at a meeting of representatives from the industry with interim Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi. The product will be distributed to the general public via specialised stalls that will be set up at Sunday bazaars and model bazaars across the province.
Haroon Akhtar, Zaka Ashraf, Fawad Mukhtar, and other members of the mill owners’ delegation were present, along with Chief Secretary Zahid Akhtar Zaman and Punjab Industries Minister S.M. Tanveer.
Additionally, both parties agreed that the cane crushing season would begin on October 28. The press release that was released following the meeting did not, however, make clear whether all of the mills in Punjab would start operating on October 28 or just those in the south, as has been customary.
The Punjab government mandated that the crushing season begin in south Punjab on November 10 and in central Punjab on November 25 of last year.
The crushing season is defined as the time period beginning on October 1 of any year and ending on June 30 of the following year in Section 2(h) of the Punjab Sugar Factories (Control) Act 1950. According to Section 8 of the Act, the owner of a factory must begin crushing cane no later than the government-specified date, which is always no later than November 30.
