The food and civil supplies officials sealed three godowns in Ludhiana, the commercial hub of Punjab, Sep 17. Later they seized over one lakh quintals of sugar worth around Rs.35 crore from these godowns.

'Sugar prices are bound to increase because of the decrease in the cultivation of sugarcane crop in Punjab. Therefore, some unscrupulous traders had started hoarding sugar to make more profits. Now to avoid the legal wrath, these traders are selling their stocks as decreased prices,' said Nishant Jain, a wholesale trader in Zirakpur town.

'Recently we had got a notification in which the Punjab government had fixed the stock limit of sugar to only 2,000 quintals, under the Essential Commodities Act. We want the administration to conduct such raids more frequently in the coming days to control the sugar prices,' Jain said.