LAHORE: Apparently in a bid to streamline sugar supplies in the province, the Punjab cane commissioner has cancelled all forward buying deals beyond 15 days.

In a letter to all deputy commissioners in the province on Thursday, Cane Commissioner Muhammad Zaman Wattoo asked them to ensure that there is no future buying/selling other than permitted in the Punjab Sugar (chain-supply) Management Order 2021 is done in their respective districts.

The letter explains that the order allows an individual dealer or wholesaler to strike a future trade deal for 15 days, while this period for an industrial consumer is three months. The purchase/sale agreements beyond these periods by the mills are also prohibited, it adds.

It says that all the agreements done in violation of the aforementioned period stand cancelled.

The cane commissioner has directed all wholesalers and dealers to lift their consignments, even those beyond the 15 days agreement, from the mills and bring the same to the market. He warns that the dealers as well as the millers not moving the sugar out of the storages will be dealt with under the powers entrusted to the cane commissioner by the Sugar (chain-supply) Management Order 2021.

It may be mentioned that the sweetener disappeared from the market when the government fixed its retail price at Rs85 per kg. The retail price was fixed on the basis of production cost of the sugar which, the government ascertained at Rs75 per kg.

Under an order of the Lahore High Court, the government has lifted 150,000 tonnes of sugar from the mills to be sold at Rs85 per kg during Ramazan and at specific retail shops. But no step was taken to ensure smooth supply of the commodity in the open market.

The retailers were forced to sell it at the official notified rates though they cried that the sweetener was available at over Rs110 per kg in the wholesale so they could not purchase it at higher rates and sell at lower prices.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2021