Kathmandu, November 21 : The parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has approved the report submitted by a sub-committee, which demands for a probe into the artificial price hike of sugar, particularly during the recent festival season, among others.
The report of the sub-committee concludes that various government officials and sugar mills had connived with one another to artificially increase sugar price. The sub-committee, formed to launch investigation into rising prices of daily essentials ahead of the recently concluded festivals, also advised the PAC to direct the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) to take actions against such connivance.
The sub-committee had submitted its report on October 12 but the committee failed to endorse the report due to the festival holidays.
On September 17, the government set sugar import quota for the current fiscal year at 100,000 tons. The import restriction is aimed to protect the Nepali sugar industry by providing it an easy access to the market. However, the very move has backfired by instead creating a hike in the market price of sugar. The customers were being charged as exorbitantly as Rs 80 for a kilogram of sugar after the imposition of import restriction. The price before the restriction was fixed at Rs 60 per kg.
According to the PAC Chairman Bharat Kumar Shah, the committee has already issued instruction to the government to ensure that the price of sugar should not exceed Rs 63 per kg.
