The bitter taste of sugar

The sugar industry has been struggling fundamentally for the past five-six years and so have been the investors in sugar stocks. Sugar companies have been able to push their revenues year on year but the profitability has constantly fallen due to the tussle between the government and producers regarding price control, minimum support price of sugarcane and export restrictions. This means that the industry's cost, revenues and the market - all are regulated. We wanted to understand the reasons for the lingering problems of the sugar sector and find out if there are any chances of their being resolved. Recently, the All India Ganna Utpadak Sangathan (AIGUS) and All India Chini Utpadak Sangathan (AICUS) came up with their view on the sugar sector's problems through media advertorials, which give us a very interesting insight into the industry. Indian sugar industry India is world's largest consumer of sugar and consumes all the sugar produced domestically, with an annual consumption of about 24.8 million tonnes and per capita consumption of around 20 kg. In the domestic market 62-65 per cent of sugar is consumed directly by bulk users and the rest by households. There are around 600 sugar factories, five crore