Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has said the government will take a call on revising import duty on white and raw sugar only after three months taking into account the progress made in crushing.

At present, import duty on white sugar as well as raw sugar is at 10 per cent each.

The Food Ministry is working on a cabinet note to raise import duty on white sugar to 20 per cent to avoid flooding of the sweetener in the domestic market and check prices. It is also mulling scrapping of import duty on raw sugar.

Recently, Pawar had said the total sugar output in the country is likely to be 23.5-24 million tonnes in the 2012-13 marketing year (October to September), lower from 26.2 million tonnes in the previous year. The annual demand for sugar is 22 million tonnes.

On sugar sector decontrol, he said, the Food Ministry has not yet discussed the issue with him but he has got a copy of the PMEAC report.

He said, the Ministry has said it would like to discuss the matter with certain industry members as part of the process.

In May, sugar exports were brought under the Open General Licence for one year and this has been extended further till September 2013.