Bhopal, Sep 21 - Sugar traders in Madhya Pradesh have stopped procuring fresh stock from mills and threatened to go on strike from Oct 1 in protest against the state government's move to confiscate the commodity from wholesalers and introducing license for them.

'We oppose the state government's auctioning of the seized sugar stocks and introducing a 'licence raj' under the cover of control order,' said Ramesh Khandelwal, president of the state sugar merchants' federation.

'We have decided to go on strike and if the government does not return the sugar it seized, we will surrender our licences', Khandelwal told IANS.

Traders also stopped lifting fresh sugar from the mills since Sunday and have informed transporters and brokers not to load fresh stock.

The government, after introducing a sugar control order in August, conducted a series of raids across the state and seized more than 80,000 quintals of sugar in a month.