India, Oct. 5 -- Sugar prices have come down from its August peak of Rs.65 per kilogram to the current Rs.53 per kilogram, but the government continues to keep a close watch on the market.

While its earlier steps included allowing one million tonnes of duty-free raw sugar imports in August to improve domestic availability, the government has continued to tighten controls on the market. Since July, central and state teams have been physically verifying sugar stocks at mills to check for hoarding and artificial scarcity.

Even though prices fell by early September, on September 15, the Centre cut the stock limit for dealers from 4,000 quintals to 2,000 quintals, citing concerns over hoarding and speculative trading. Three days later, it as...