After a gap of six months, the State government has decided to resume sale of sugar under the PDS to all white ration cardholders from January.
The government, however, is yet to take a decision on its price as the Central government has stopped subsidy on the commodity from March this year.
The government is not providing sugar following the Centre’s decision to do away with subsidy from April 2017.
The government will provide half kg sugar to each white ration card-holder. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cardholders will get one kg sugar.
There are close to 1.40 crore white ration cardholders and 1.96 lakh AAY cardholders in the State. The government has to procure 7,573 tonnes of sugar per month to meet the demand.
The government is mulling over options to supply subsidised sugar. Besides asking the Centre to continue to share the burden of subsidy, the State is thinking of increasing the price of sugar sold at fair price shops (FPS) to ₹13.50 or ₹20 per half kg, sources say.
“The government wants to fix the price in such a way the people do not suffer and the burden on it is as less as possible,” says an official.
The State government is now purchasing sugar from the open market through e-tenders. It is providing half kg sugar to each card-holder per month at a price of ₹13.50 per kg.
The subsidy used to be borne by both the Central and State governments. The Centre used to share ₹10.53 crore per month and the State ₹10.41 crore.
The Centre used to reimburse subsidy at the rate of ₹18,500 per tonne, sources say.
Due to scrapping of the subsidy, the government will have to shoulder the burden of ₹20.94 crore per month. The burden would be about ₹250 crore per annum.