CM punjab infuriated over Sugar Crisis

Lahore: A high level meeting on sugar crisis was chaired by Chief Minister Punjab, Sardar Usman Bazdar. The Chief Minister expressed grave concerns over rising sugar prices.

Chief Minister was informed that the local mills were having 800,000 sacks of sugar. The Provincial Minister for Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal has been assigned the task of bringing sugar stored in sugar mills to the market. “Sugar should be sold at controlled government rates”, CM Punjab directed to Mian Aslam Iqbal. “Strict legal action should be taken against mills which do not sell sugar at government rates”, said the Chief Minister.

Details of reserves of sugar mills were also given in the meeting. It was told during in the briefing that there was 110,000 metric tons of imported sugar, including utility stores. “The total reserves of local and imported sugar were currently 150,000 metric tons, which would be enough for the month of November”, it was told in the briefing.
The total demand of the people and small consumers is 5800 tons per day.
The Chief Minister was told that an artificial sugar crisis was created. “Sugar Crisis won’t have happened, had the Sugar Mills not ceased the supply Of Sugar”, said the briefing.

Some sugar mill owners withheld sugar stocks and raised prices, exacerbating crisis. The Chief Minister directed that sugar number of outlets should be expanded from Rs 1,600 to Rs 2,600.
Utility stores have been told to set up special stalls to sell sugar.