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| Sugar crisis set to hit NWFP |
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Crop cultivation drops by 25pc; Monday witnessed Rs6 per kg increase in the commodity
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Riaz Khan Daudzai
PESHAWAR: Sugar crisis is set to hit the NWFP as the price of the item started soaring while even the Utility Stores in the provincial metropolis have been going without the commodity for about a month.
Referring to the emerging sugar crisis, a source told The News certain quarters were out to create a 2006-like situation when sugar price had increased by over 95 per cent in the same financial year.
During a market survey, it was observed that the Utility Stores in the provincial capital had not been receiving their daily supply of sugar since the 9th of this month, forcing the poor consumers to buy the commodity at Rs36 per kg in the retail market.
The source said even after the ouster of Nawaz’ government in 1999 sugar remained one of the food items whose price remained stable. In 2001, per kg price of the sugar was Rs22, which in 2002 shed two rupees and was selling at Rs20. It did not stop there and continued its downward trend after bumper crop and lower production cast with its Rs18 per kg in 2003 and Rs21 per kg in 2004.
There was no look-back point in the increase of the sugar price since then and it was selling for Rs27 per kg in 2005. This was for the first time in the history of the country that sugar price had increased by over 95 per cent in the same financial year and it hiked to the all-time high figure of Rs40 per kg and even above in 2006.
In the local retail market, the price of sugar Monday witnessed an increase of Rs6 per kg as it was selling Rs36 per kg against its two-day-old price of the Rs30 per kg. The 49 kg bag of sugar, which was earlier selling at Rs1,400 was now being sold at Rs1,800 on the local market.
A source in the Utility Store Corporation told The News the USC stores in the provincial metropolis might be released their quota of sugar in a day or two. However, he alleged that certain elements were involved in the latest increase in sugar price by hindering the release of the sugar stock to the stores in time. He said some stores had received supply of sugar, but certain black sheep in the USC in collusion with local shopkeepers, were hampering its supply to the common man.
The source did not deny the reports that some shops in Nauthia and other localities were selling the Utility Stores items, including sugar at market price in the city district. The retail sugar price is likely to set a new record after reports of future sugar contracts in the market in anticipation of more supply shortages as, according to the president of the Sarhad Chamber of the Agriculture, Ihsan Ullah Khan, the cultivation of sugarcane has been decreased by 25 per cent in the NWFP.
He said the chamber had already brought the precarious situation to the notice of both the chief minister, Ameer Haider Hoti and provincial agriculture minister, Arbab Ayub Jan, who had assured the growers that the sugar mills would be asked to start crushing sugarcane in October.
The source said due to high cast of inputs, the growers in NWFP had to bear the loss of over Rs3000 per acre; therefore, they had slashed the sugarcane cultivation by 25 per cent, which might also lead to a shortfall in the commodity during the next year.He said sugar crisis had been continuing unabated since 2005-06, but so far none of the governments could resolve the dispute between the growers and millers over the price of sugarcane.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
