The government has taken several steps to provide relief to cooperative sugar mills

26-Jul-2024 08:58 PM

New Delhi. The Central Government has taken several steps to provide relief and concessions to the cooperative sector sugar mills, which was being demanded for a long time.

According to the information given in the Rajya Sabha, cooperative sugar mills will get exemption from additional income tax on payment of sugarcane farmers' dues from April 2016.

This outstanding amount can be either the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) or State Supported Price (MSP) of sugarcane. 

Similarly, decades-old pending cases of cooperative sugar mills related to income tax have been resolved. For this, a provision has been made in the Union General Budget of 2023-24 that if cooperative sugar mills have paid the outstanding price to sugarcane farmers for the period before the review (assessment) year 2016-17, then approval has been given to claim it as an expenditure. This will provide relief of more than Rs 10,000 crore to cooperative sugar mills.

In order to strengthen the co-operative sugar mills financially, a loan scheme of Rs 10,000 crore has been launched under which co-operative and private sugar mills will be given equal opportunity to purchase ethanol at government level under National Cooperative Development Corporation

(NCDC) for setting up ethanol plant or co-product plant or for meeting working capital requirement or for all the three purposes.

The government has decided to reduce GST on molasses from 28 per cent to 5 per cent. Co-operative sugar mills will also be able to supply it to distilleries with higher margins.