India’s Pawar briefs PM on sugar decontrol, PTI says

India’s Farm and Food Minister Sharad Pawar today briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the plan to end controls on sugar producers, the Press Trust of India reported, citing people it didn’t identify.

Pawar made a presentation about the way the food ministry plans to lift controls and how withdrawal of restrictions would benefit consumers and farmers, the agency said.

India’s government decides the floor price for cane, the quantity of sugar to be sold in the market every month and buys 20 percent of the output at below-market prices from mills to sell to the poor. Pawar is said to have proposed to do away with fixing the monthly sales quota for mills, the agency said.

Pawar last month said the food ministry is preparing a proposal for freeing the sugar sector, which would be sent to various ministries for their views before taking it to Cabinet, the Press Trust said.

Pawar in July said the time is right for the government to end controls on sugar mills as output it set for a rebound.