Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Minister H Halappa in his speech at Chief Ministers’ conference on the price rise issue, said due to non-supply of sugar by factories, the state’s quota for distribution of the sweetener to the poor under PDS has suffered. If the Centre delegates more power, the State could initiate action against erring factories, he said. The CM’s speech was read out in his absence by Halappa.
Levy sugar is the quantity mills sell at subsidised rate to government for the PDS. There were complaints from many states that factories were diverting the levy quota to the open market to cash in on current price rise. At present, sugar prices in the country are hovering around Rs 47 a kg in Delhi against Rs 25 a kg during the same period last year.
Blaming the Centre for the current price rise, the state government said unnecessary speculative statements by the officials at the Union government has resulted in dramatic upswing of prices. Consumption and production levels of many commodities in Karnataka were nearly the same and it was purely speculation which triggered panic buying and hoarding.
The State had requested the Centre to exempt it from procurement of levy rice due to low production following the drought. Though the State had given a target of 2 lakh metric tonnes of procurement of levy rice, so far only 18,000 MT has been purchased.