As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak leads to a worsening crisis in India, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Friday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to ensure the central government's intervention in helping the sugar industry. In his letter, Pawar requested the Prime Minister to announce a bailout package for the sugar industry amid this crisis.

The NCP chief pointed out that the sugar industry in Maharashtra has been facing trouble for the past three years, even before the coronavirus outbreak. However, this year, especially, the COVID-19 pandemic has placed the sugar industry in the state in a particularly difficult fix.

Therefore, in this regard, Pawar forwarded a letter from the Chairman of Maharashtra State Co-op. Sugar Factories Federation Ltd. to Prime Minister Modi and listed relief measures that are required in the sector amid the COVID-19 lockdown, to tide over the difficulties that it is facing. The NCP chief seemed hopeful of the fact that the Prime Minister will look into the matter and initiate intervening measures as soon as possible.

The measures suggested by Sharad Pawar to the Prime Minister, regarding the sugar industry:

• The Minimum Selling Price (MSP) of sugar is currently Rs 3,100 and should be increased with a grade-wise increment from Rs 3,450 to Rs 3,750.  
• Export incentive grant from the central government is pending with the Centre for the past two years. The provision of funds should be provided immediately, along with pending buffer stock expenses.  
• Two years of expenditure for stocking sugar should be paid for by the central government.  
• Restructure the debt on sugar factories for 10 years.  
• Banks should get loans to start distillery for ethanol production, by enabling these distilleries to be treated as Strategic Business Units (SBUs).

Earlier too, Sharad Pawar had written to Prime Minister Modi, raised his objections on the central government's move to station the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) authority in Gujarat. Pawar had requested Modi to revisit the issue.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra continues to be the epicentre of the coronavirus spread where the number of cases has witnessed an even large spike recently, recording nearly 1,500 cases in a single day, the highest to date.  According to the Health Ministry, Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with over 27,500 positive cases of infection and more than 1,000 deaths.

Notably, Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, has become the hotbed of the coronavirus spread in the state where the number of cases has crossed the 16,700-mark and the death toll has topped the 620-mark as well. One of the real challenges in Mumbai is controlling the disease contamination in Asia's biggest slum -- Dharavi, which is an extremely densely-populated region.