Sugar mills can sell 20.5 lakh tonne of sugar in the open market during November, according to a notification by the food ministry. As per the notification, 535 mills have been allocated 20.5 lakh tonne of sugar for sale in the current month.
This quota is 1.5 lakh tonne less as compared to the allocation for November 2018. Additional quota of sugar has been given to those mills that have completed more than half of the export quota during the 2018-19 season (October-September).
According to experts, the quantity of sugar allocated for the current month is lower because there is no festival demand. Last year, Diwali and other festivals fell in November and therefore the quota was fixed higher.
The government has decided to create 40 lakh tonne of buffer stock of sugar in the 2019-20 season. Sugar mills are likely to commence crushing operations from November 15. India's sugar output was 331 lakh tonne in the 2018-19 marketing year (October-September) as against the annual domestic demand of 250-260 lakh tonne. -- PTI