The Central Government has given several incentives to sugar industry to help it resolve liquidity problems and expeditiously clear cane price due of farmers during 2014-15. Here are the major measures taken by the ministry to address the concern of sugar cane farmers:

1. Provided working capital loans with interest subvention to sugar mills to facilitate clearance of cane price dues of farmers under Scheme for Extending Financial Assistance to Sugar Undertakings (SEFASU-2014) and Soft Loan scheme.

2. Incentive for exporting raw sugar in sugar seasons 2013-14 and 2014-15.

3. Fixed remunerative prices for supplies of ethanol to OMCs for blending with petrol; waiver of excise duty on ethanol supplies to OMCs during 2015-16.

4. Notified a scheme on 2.12.2015 to extend production subsidy @ Rs. 4.50 per quintal to sugar mills to offset the cost of cane and facilitate timely payment of cane price dues of farmers.

This information was given by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The Minister said that besides extending the incentives referred in reply to part c) above, the Government has taken following additional measures for the welfare of sugarcane farmers and sugar industry:

1. Enhanced import duty to 40% to discourage imports.

2. The “Duty Free Import Authorization” scheme (DFIA), for sugar withdrawn.

3. The period for discharging Export Obligations under the Advanced Authorization Scheme for sugar reduced to 6 months to prevent leakage into the domestic economy.

4. Scaled up blending targets under Ethanol Blending Programme from 5% to 10%.