LAHORE: The Cane Commissioner Punjab has launched a campaign to counter check the sucrose level (recovery rate) being reported by the sugar mills to ensure farmers get better price of their produce and the government gets accurate revenue under the head of sales tax.
The Sugarcane Research Institute and mobile laboratory of the Cane Commissioner Punjab office will visit different mills to ascertain the actual recovery rate as reported by the mills.
Cane Commissioner Punjab Zaman Wattoo while talking to the Business Recorder here on Monday said that certain sugar mills are under reporting the sucrose level or recovery of sugar from the sugarcane being purchased by the mills. He said that mills, if buy 1000 maund of sugarcane, recover 111 maund of sugar from that cane but they report only 90 maund thus evading the sales tax of 20-21 maund of sugar produced by them.
Similarly, he said that mills by under reporting the sucrose level also deprive the farmers of their due money. He said that the present minimum purchase rate is based on 8.7 percent recovery rate and the judiciary in a recent decision had asked for enforcing 'Quality Premium' to those varieties which give more recovery. He said today they sent the mobile lab to Hussain Sugar Mills and found that the mills were under reporting. He claimed that mills were reporting average sucrose content at 9 percent while some varieties have over 11 percent recovery rate thus leading to average recovery rate of 10 percent.
Zaman Wattoo further said that ensuring 'Quality Premium' will also help weed out the inefficient mills or compel them to improve their working. He claimed that the efficient mills were producing sugar at the rate of Rs 43-44 per kilograms while inefficient mills were producing it at the rate of Rs 63-64 per kilograms. He was of the view that the efficient mills were playing with the gap of this Rs 20 in the production cost of both segments. He was of the view that it also leads to cartelization in this sector.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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