India has kept the price that sugar mills must pay to cane growers, for the season starting October 2016, unchanged at Rs.230 per 100kg, trade and government insiders said, as the world’s biggest consumer tries to arrest the rising prices of the sweetener.

The government has accepted recommendation of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices to keep the cane price steady for the next season, said a government official, who declined to be named.

Although the central government fixes the cane price every year, some state governments such as Uttar Pradesh invariably raise the rate to woo farmers, which is a large voting bloc.

India is likely to become a net importer of the sweetener in the 2016-17 season, starting 1 October, as back-to-back drought years dried irrigation channels and ravaged cane fields.