'Sugar can be made available to consumers at Rs 50/Kg'

Chairman Agri Forum Pakistan Muhammad Ibrahim Mughal has claimed that sugar can be made available to consumers at around Rs 50 per kilograms provided the government asserts its writ. In a statement issued here on Monday, Mughal claimed that sugarcane in India was being sold at Rs 236 per maund (in Pak rupees), while sugar prepared by crushing this sugarcane was being sold at Rs 60 per kilogram (in Pak rupees).
He said that farmers are buying Urea bag in India at Rs 481 and DAP fertiliser bag at Rs 1020 per bag (both prices in Pak rupees). Ibrahim Mughal said that sugarcane in Pakistan is at Rs 160 per maund, Urea bag at Rs 1040 per bag and DAP at Rs 3280 per bag but the sugar is being sold to consumer at Rs 65 per kilograms.
He questioned that why sugar, being prepared from sugarcane bought at Rs 160 per maund, was being sold to consumers at Rs 65 per kilograms. While in India price of sugar in Pakistani rupees is Rs 60 per kilogram, whereas agricultural inputs are cheaper and sugarcane was being sold at Rs 236 per maund.
Both the federal and provincial governments should take notice of it and either they should enhance the price of sugarcane or reduce the price of sugar to protect the interests of consumers, Mughal concluded. Meanwhile, Kisan Board Pakistan (KBP) in a separate press release has also urged the sugar millers to immediately clear the payments of sugarcane growers. They said that a task force is being constituted by the Board to give a call for protest against the owners of sugar, flour and fertilisers millers, who according to the Board President and General Secretary were looting the growers.
According to the press release, KBP President Sardar Zafar Hussein and General Secretary Malik Muhammad Ramzan Rohari, while talking to delegations of the farmers also criticised the procurement policy of the Punjab government this year. They criticised reducing the number of purchasing centres and neglecting the true representatives of farmers in the committees formed at these centres to monitor the procurement drive.
KBP also demanded that the government should review its procurement target, not withdraw delivery charges as proposed, increase purchasing centres and also include true representatives of farmers in the supervisory committees.