Large khandsari units brought under Sugar Control Order
The government has brought large khandsari sugar units under the Sugar Control Order 2025 to ensure FRP payments to farmers, improve production tracking, and prevent sugar diversion. Units above 500 TCD must register and report data. The move enhances transparency, ensures fair domestic supply, and integrates GSTN data to monitor sales and enforce monthly quotas.
Govt brings large khandsari sugar units under Sugar Control Order 2025 to ensure FRP payments to farmers and improve production tracking. Units with over 500 TCD must register and report data. Move aims to regulate sugar diversion, enhance transparency, and ensure fair domestic availability.
The government has brought units manufacturing khandsari sugar above a threshold size under the Sugar Control Order (SCO), 2025.
This variety of the sweetener that is considered a healthier alternative to refined white crystalline sugar.
The move would ensure payment of fair and remunerative (FRP) to the cane farmers by khandsari sugar units and ensure robust estimation of production of the variety.
“Right now, we are not accounting khandsari output in our total sugar production,” a food ministry official said, adding that currently there in not a mechanism to ascertain whether these units pay FRP while buying sugarcane from the farmers.
The gazette notification for the amended sugar (control) order, 2025 is likely to be issued on Friday.
The Khandsari sugar industry has been seeing rising production, however no official data available on output of this variant of sugar. Out of the total estimated sugarcane production of 43.5 million tonne (MT) in 2024-25 crop year (July-June), around 13.5 MT of sugarcane was used for manufacturing of jaggery, juices and khandsari.
Units with crushing capacity exceeding 500 tonne crushed per day (TCD) will now be included in the SCO. Once put under the order, mills making khandsari will also have to report the quantities of cane procured, crushing, and production starting the next sugar season (October-September 2025-26) . The government also issues monthly sales quota to units under the SCO, which needs to be complied with.
Currently, there are around 373 Khandsari units out of which only 66 have capacity of more than 500 TCD each. “These units will need to register on the National Single Window System and they have two months to register with the digital platform,” an official said.
Khandsari sugar is physically extracted from the liquid jaggery and does not undergo chemical treatment like refined white sugar. This variant of sugar is mostly manufactured in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra.
The food ministry has also included raw sugar in the amended control order to prevent it from being marketed under misleading names like khandsari or organic sugar. Various by-products including cane bagasse, molasses, press mud cake and ethanol have been included in the new sugar control order, 2025.
“This will help the government to regulate the diversion of sugar to ensure sufficient availability for domestic consumption,” Sanjeev Chopra, secretary, department of food and public distribution said.
The amended sugar control order of 1966 incorporates definitions from the Food Safety Standard Authority of India for various sugar products and includes clauses related to sugar price regulation, previously part of a separate order.
Under the new order, to enhance efficiency, generation of real time data, reduce data leakages and redundancies of sugar production and distribution, GSTN data of more than 450 sugar mills relating to sale of sugar by mills would be integrated with the food ministry portal.
“This would ensure that mills do not violate the monthly quota of domestic sale issued by the food ministry,” Chopra said.
He said that in the 2024-25 sugar season (October-September), sugar exports is likely to be around 0.8 MT out of 1 MT permitted as some sugar mills have not shown interest in export since “they are realising better rates on domestic markets,”.
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Source : Financial Express
