Sugar-coating bad policies

Given over four million farmers are involved, given it is an election year and given that Mulayam Singh Yadav is a valuable ally, chances are the government will soon approve a sugar bailout package to ensure private sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh start their crushing soon. While interest-free loans are a part of the package being worked out, it is not clear how much this will help since, going by the mills’ public statements, they are staring at a gap of over R55 per quintal—their balance sheets for the last quarter reflect their poor financials. 

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