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Government ridicules Sugargate charge

The government late last night termed "ridiculous" the Congress allegation that the exchequer suffered a loss of Rs 9 billion in foreign exchange because of sugar imports from Pakistan, and maintained that no budgetary support was provided for the purpose.

Reacting to the charge that the government was involved in a 'sugargate scam', a spokesman said the imports were done exclusively by private parties under the open general licence.

Moreover, he pointed out, sugar had been put on the OGL at zero duty in 1994 by the P V Narasimha Rao government.

Import under OGL implies that any person or businessmen or organisation is free to buy the commodity from any source anywhere in the world and sell it in India at a price to be decided by him depending on the market situation. The government has no role in these transactions, the spokesman pointed out.

The 'zero duty' sugar imports remained unaltered by the two United Front governments headed by H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, he said.

In 1997-98, a total of 3,46.905 tonnes of sugar was imported, of which the second largest quantity came from Pakistan. And this happened before the Vajpayee government came to power, the spokesman said.

He said it was the Vajpayee government that imposed an import duty, initially pegged at 5 per cent. This was subsequently raised to 20 per cent and 25 per cent. Now it stands at 27.5 per cent, including surcharge. As a result, the domestic sugar industry is better equipped now to handle the competition from abroad, he said.

UNI

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