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Government Dilly-Dallying Import of Sugar

Traders take advantage to hike the price arbitarily

  2 min 26 sec to read
Government Dilly-Dallying Import of Sugar
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May 11: The state-owned Salt Trading Corporation (STC) has run out of sugar stock since the last six months but the government is yet to give permission to the corporation to purchase sugar.

It has been learnt that permission has been delayed due to lack of coordination between the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS).

The STC had run out of sugar stock since December last year. It had sent a letter to the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies in January seeking permission to buy 50,000 metric tons of sugar. The STC can begin the process of purchasing sugar only after the letter is approved by the Ministry of Finance. However, the purchase of sugar has been delayed due to lack of coordination between the two ministries.

Kumar Raj Bhandari, spokesperson of the STC, said that they have not received any response from the ministry regarding the letter. Urmila KC, deputy spokesperson of MoICS, said that the ministry had sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance in December last year seeking permission to buy 50,000 metric tonnes of sugar but they have not received any response so far. Meanwhile KC is not aware about the reason for the delay.

Earlier, the MoICS had said that the permission to import sugar was delayed as the ministry was ascertaining the volume of sugar that the Nepali sugar industries would produce this year. However, Nepal Sugar Producers Association has already sent the data of sugar produced by the industries to the ministry one month ago. This year, Nepal has produced 100,000 metric tons of sugar.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has said that the letter to purchase sugar from MoICS was received only on April 22, not in December last year. Mahesh Acharya, spokesperson of the MoF, said he was not aware of the letter received in December last year.

Traders, on the other hand, have arbitrarily increased the price of sugar taking advantage of the prohibitory orders imposed to contain coronavirus. They have increased the price of sugar by Rs 10 per kg in a month. According to Nepal Retailers Association, the price of sugar has been increased to Rs 95 from Rs 85 per kg. 

 

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