'Sugar exports ban precautionary step to ensure supply in festivals'

New Delhi: Just a day after capping sugar exports at 10 million tonnes this year, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey has justified the Centre's decision by terming it as a "timely and precautionary" measure, taken to ensure adequate availability of sugar during the festival season in October-November and to maintain price stability.

Although prices of sugar are "more stable" when compared to other commodities, the decision to curb sugar exports was taken to prevent any undue spike in retail prices amid a global shortage of the commodity, he said.

He also stressed that India has emerged this year as the world's largest sugar producer, toppling Brazil which faced a shortage of output this year. India is also the second-largest sugar exporter in the world. In a late-night notification on

In a hurriedly called press conference, the Food Secretary said, "Sugar exports have risen sharply from about 50,000 tonnes in 2016-17 to 10 million tonnes this year. Please take it out of mind that it is any kind of curb." "The country's sugar exports this year are the highest ever. Already 9 million tonnes of sugar have been contracted, out of which 7.5 million tonnes have been exported," Pandey said, adding that sugar exports stood at a record 7 million tonnes in the 2020-21 marketing year.

The curbs had to be imposed to ensure enough availability of sugar during the festival season in October-November, which is also the beginning of the new sugar marketing year and when domestic demand for sugar is met from old stocks, Pandey said. About 6-6.2 million tonnes of sugar would be the closing stock at the end of the current marketing year, just the optimum level to meet the domestic requirement in October-November, Pandey said.

"On top of it, the global availability of sugar is less due to shortage in Brazil. In this backdrop, the curbs had to be imposed to maintain domestic availability and price stability," he maintained.