Kathmandu, October 12: A number of government officials had connived with sugar mills to artificially inflate the price of sugar in the market. This was concluded by a sub-committee formed by the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to look into the skyrocketing prices of various daily commodities including sugar in this festival of Dashain.
According to the recommendation report of the sub-committee, there was a collusion in fixing the price of sugar at Rs 70 per kg instead of implementing the agreement reached between the sugar mills and the government on September 6.
“The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority should be directed by the PAC TO conduct a detailed investigation into the anomaly,” it read.
The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies last week fixed the price of sugar at Rs 70. However, this contradicted with the reported decision of sugar mills to limit the price to Rs 63 per kg if the government imposed a quantitative restriction on the import of sugar. The sub-committee sensed fraudulence in such anomaly.
Following the request of Nepali sugar mills, the government on September 17 fixed sugar import quota for the current fiscal year at 100,000 tons. Though the import restriction was meant for protecting the Nepali sugar industry and providing it an easy access to the market, it has resulted into the artificial increase in the price of sugar. General customers were forking out as much as Rs 80 for a kilo of sugar after the import restriction was imposed. The price before the restriction was just Rs 60.
