The import duty on sugar is 15 per cent and prices of the sweetener are stable at present in the domestic market, Parliament was informed on Friday. ‘No sir, the current rate of import duty on sugar is 15 per cent,’ Minister of State for food Raosabeb Patil Danve said in a written statement to the Rajya Sabha.
Domestic sugar prices at present are stable, he added. He was replying to a question whether the government has raised import duty on sugar from 15 per cent to 40 per cent and its impact on sugar prices. The minister said that the import duty of 15 per cent on sugar is still in vogue. It was last raised in August last year from 10 per cent. Last month at a high-level meeting, the government had decided to hike the import duty on the sweetener to 40 per cent as part of various measures for improving liquidity of cash-starved sugar mills to enable them clear cane arrears.
Till June, sugar arrears stood at Rs 11,524 crore. Earlier this year, the government had announced interest-free loan worth Rs 6,600 crore to sugar mills to pay dues to growers. The sugar industry has been facing a cash crunch due to higher cost of production and lower selling prices in the wake of surplus output over
the past few years.


‘Output to rise 4% to 25 mt this marketing year’
New Delhi:  India’s sugar production is estimated to rise by 4 per cent to 25.3 million tonnes during the next marketing year starting October despite a drop in cane area by 2 per cent, industry body ISMA said on Friday.
Sugar production is estimated at 24.3 million tonnes in the 2013-14 marketing year (October-September).
With opening stock of 7.5 million tonnes at the start of next marketing year and a projected rise in production, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said the availability would be sufficient to meet annual demand of 24.5 million tonnes.