LAHORE, Feb 16: Local importers claimed on Thursday shortage of carriage vans in India was hampering the sugar import. The Pakistan government had promised to send the railway vans to fetch sugar, but it had yet to do so. The situation could improve as soon as the railway vans were arranged, they said.

Despite the shortage, however, one of importers had booked a carriage and some 20,000 ton might arrive within next 10 days, according to importer Mian Waheed. He said India had till now allowed export only to the mills which imported raw sugar. But the Indian millers had succeeded in moving a summary for permission to all of them for export of sugar to Pakistan.

“If that happens in the next few days, the railway carriages will become all the more important,” he said.

Even now Indian millers had sufficient sugar to meet shortage in Pakistan, but carriage was the problem, he said.

The importers had already opened letters of credit for more than 200,000 tons of sugar, said Asghar Butt of the Sugar Dealers Association. He added that the import could temporarily release some pressure on the domestic market, but it was not a permanent solution to the crisis.

The government had to take some basic steps to improve the domestic situation, he said, suggesting that it had to lure farmers back to cane crop by restoring financial promise. “Unless it does so, no amount of import can solve the crisis,” he said.