Sugar prices hit new highs

way2barak, Aug 22: Sugar prices are up from ₹49 a kilo on July 20 to ₹67 a kilo in four weeks. In sweet-toothed Bengal, the worry is how hard the pocket pinches.

The spiral of prices across products is worrying ahead of the festival season, our biggest,” said Dhiman Das of KC Das.

First it was commercial LPG, then milk and now sugar, he explained.

“The price of sugar has been rising sharply, and its availability has become a challenge. Milk prices have already gone up. The festive season is about to start. Raksha Bandhan will be celebrated next week. We would urge the state and the central governments to intervene to check the prices of sugar and other products,” Das said in his opening address at the conclave of sweet and namkeen manufacturers.

Panchayat and agriculture marketing minister Dilip Ghosh was the chief guest at the meet where manufacturers from across the state converged.

Retail dealers in the city’s markets said sugar prices have risen 10% in the past four days.

Products associated with sugar, like jaggery, batasa, and nakuldana are also witnessing a spike.

On Thursday, the Centre allowed sugar mills to import 1 million tonnes of raw sugar, a measure last resorted to a decade ago. Traders said its impact had yet to be felt in the market.

The government has also imposed a stockholding limit on bulk customers who consume more than 10 tonnes of sugar a month, capping their stock at 15 days’ consumption.

“We require over 200kg of sugar every day. How do we manage the price escalation? This is the time when we place our orders in advance for the festive season,” said Umesh Gupta, owner of Gupta Brothers in Ballygunge.

“There is no clarity on whether the prices will continue to surge and for how long. We have decided to hold the orders for materials for the festive season.”

A section of manufacturers said they were calculating the rise in input costs every day, an exercise they usually do at the end of every month.

“Our daily requirement of sugar is over 400kg because we need around 700-800gm of sugar for every two-and-a-half kg of chhana,” said Rahul Chaurasia of Ganguram.

“It is neither easy to take in the losses with the rise in sugar prices nor is it possible to go in for a price hike. It is a tricky situation.”

Some manufacturers have already hiked prices.

“We did not increase the price of our products when the LPG prices went up. Now that milk and sugar prices have gone up, we calculated that between March and July, we have incurred a loss of over ₹22 lakh,” said Saikat Pal of Batai Sweets in Howrah, which is a century old.

“Last week we decided to revise the prices.”

An increasingly health conscious population is drastically cutting down its sugar consumption. A price hike at such a time is now a palatable decision for most makers.