New Delhi: Just a week after the furore on sugar data, the sectors’ figures has had to be revised again. On Tuesday the Indian Sugar Mills Association (Isma) reported that India’s sugar output rose 13% until April 15 in the marketing year from October last year.

Sugar output in India — the world’s second-biggest producer — rose to 24.63 million tonne since October 1, compared with 21.71 million tonne a year before, the data released by Isma showed. But it also had to make a “clerical” change in the data for the month of April as the data for Maharashtra was inadvertently shown for the month of February. The state has the largest share in sugar production in the country.

The production estimates came under sharp focus recently after a goof-up by the food ministry forced the government to trim the country’s industrial output growth in January significantly to 1.1% from a significant 6.8%. “...the sugar production was wrongly taken as 13.40 million tonne in place of the actual figure of 5.80 million tonne,” ministry of statistics and programme implementation secretary TCA Anant said last week.

Explaining the error in the January data, Anant said: “The weight of sugar in overall IIP is 1.5% but if you multiply 1.5% with a certain number, then the size makes the difference. My guess is, 95% of the change is on account of sugar, although there may be some small adjustments which may be on account of other reports. Sugar is part of the food and beverages product category and consumer non-durables group; it’s part of manufacturing.” The government also decided to form a committee to suggest ways for ensuring more accurate data collection in future.