India to impose stock limits on sugar - govt source

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will ask state governments to impose limits on the quantity of sugar that traders and big users such as soft drink and confectionery makers can keep, a government source said, after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The source did not give details. After a surge in local prices, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan recently put forward the idea of imposing limits on the quantity of sugar that traders can hold. India, the world's biggest sugar consumer, is likely to become a net importer of the sweetener in 2016/17 as back-to-back drought years dried irrigation channels and ravaged cane fields, with output in the country's biggest producing state seen dropping over 40 percent. (Reporting by Nigam Prusty, editing by David Evans)