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Informist, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026

 

MUMBAI – The government has imposed sugar stock holding limits on bulk consumers, ordering those who consume more than 10 tonnes of sugar per month as raw material cannot hold inventories for more than 15 days. In a notification released late Wednesday, the government said the order, titled Sugar (Stockholding Limit of Bulk Consumers) Order, 2026, will come into effect Sept. 1 and remain in force till Nov. 30. The order comes amid soaring prices of the sweetener. 

 

The order applies specifically to bulk consumers, which include confectioners, soft drink manufacturers, food processing industries, sweetmeat sellers, and other institutional buyers whose average monthly sugar consumption in the last one year, excluding the current month, was at least 10 tonnes. Institutions belonging to the central government, state governments, Union Territory administrations, and local bodies are exempt from the order.

 

On Wednesday, ex-mill prices of sugar in Uttar Pradesh were INR 5,850 per 100 kilograms, up from INR 4,830 per 100 kg a week ago. In Kolhapur, Maharashtra, prices rose to INR 5,550 per 100 kg Wednesday from INR 4,860 per 100 kg.

 

The government will verify the quantity of sugar sold by each mill to bulk consumers, either directly or through dealers, the notification said. Consumption will be determined using goods and services tax returns filed by sellers and buyers, with reference to the relevant Harmonised System of Nomenclature code for sugar, it said.

 

Over the past several weeks, sugar prices have risen sharply whenever the government has intervened in the market to ease them. Friday, the government mandated that mills must despatch stocks within seven days of billing to prevent the creation of an artificial scarcity. In the first two weeks of this month, the government also undertook physical inspections of sugar mills across the country to verify their reported stocks and sales data. In July, it imposed a stock holding limit on traders for four months starting August. 

 

According to experts, these actions of the government convey the message that sugar supply is tightening, and the stock pipeline is running dry. However, they clarified that the Indian market is not short of sugar, and stocks will last until October. "It's not like we are going to have zero stocks, but tightness will be felt because you cannot reach the very last bag," Rahil Shaikh, founder & managing director, MEIR Commodities, explained.

 

Reported by Shreya Shetty

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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