Sugar mills can sell 21 lakh tonne of the sweetener in the open market during the festival month of October, the government order said on Monday.

 

The food ministry has increased the allocation for October from 19.5 lakh tonne in September keeping in view festivals of Dussehra and Diwali.

 

In a notification, the ministry has allocated sugar quota for sale to each of the total 535 mills in the country.

 

Additional quota of sugar has been given for sale in the domestic market to those mills that have completed more than half of the export quota during the 2018-19 season that ended this month.

 

The domestic sale quota, however, has not been reduced for those mills that have not been able to meet their export quota.

 

Experts said the quantity of sugar allocated for domestic sale is sufficient to meet the demand in October.

 

The government has decided to create 4 million tonne of buffer stock of sugar in the 2019-20 season (October-September).

 

Sugar mills are likely to commence crushing operations after Diwali from November 1 onwards. India's sugar output is likely to be 32.95 million tonne in the current 2018-19 marketing year (October-September) as against the annual domestic demand of 26 million tonne.

 

According to industry body ISMA, opening stocks of sugar are expected to be at an all-time high of around 14.5 million tonne on October 1, as against the normative requirement of around 5 million tonne.