Sectoral apex body Indian Sugar Mills’ Association (Isma) has revised downwards the output for the current sugar season (2018-19) to 30.7 million tonne (MT), against 31.5 MT as estimated earlier in October 2018.
As is the practice, Isma has procured the satellite images of cane area already harvested and remaining unharvested area in the fields across the country during mid-season (the second week of January 2019).
On the basis of these images of harvested and balance area, trend of yields and sugar recoveries achieved till now as also expected yield/sugar recovery in the balance period of SS, sugar production in the current season is estimated to be around 30.7 MT against the first advance estimates of 31.5 MT in October 2018. This is after considering estimated diversion of 5 lakh tonne (0.5 MT) of sugar into production of ethanol through ‘B’ heavy molasses, said Isma on Monday.
Considering the trend of sugar exports, it is expected that sugar mills could be exporting about 30-35 lakh tonne of sugar in 2018-19 SS against the allocated minimum indicative export quota (MIEQ) of 50 lakh tonne, unless the export quota is backed up by the government with some force or penalty on mills which are not exporting against their quotas, Isma said.
The apex body said the cane price arrears as on December 31, 2018, were `19,000 crore, including `2,800 crore of arrears of the previous season. This is substantially higher to arrears last season as on December 31, 2017, of around `10,600 crore. Till January 15, 2019, as many as 510 sugar mills in the country have produced 14.69 MT, against13.56 MT produced on the corresponding date of last year, i.e., current year’s production is 8.32% ahead of last year’s output.
This is because the mills have started earlier this season, even though the whole year’s sugar production will be less than last year.
As of January 15, 2019, 117 sugar mills in UP were operating and they crushed 38.21 MT of sugarcane and produced 4.193 MT of sugar. Estimates based on satellite images procured in January 2019 as also considering the cut in yield and increased sugar recovery this year, mills in UP are expected to produce 11.29 MT in 2018-19 SS, against 12.04 MT in 2017-18 SS.
In Maharashtra, 188 sugar mills were operating as of now and had produced 5.725 MT till January 15, 2019, an increase of 0.7 MT over last year’s production as on this date when 183 mills were in operation. Mills in the current season had started 10-15 days earlier and are expected to close earlier.
As per the second advance estimates of Isma, Maharashtra is expected to produce 9.5 MT in 2018-19 SS, which is the same as the first advance estimates made by Isma in September 2018. In 2017-18 SS, Maharashtra had, however, produced 10.72 MT.
The other major sugar producing state, Karnataka, is expected to produce 4.2 MT of sugar in 2018-19 SS, against 3.75 MT produced in 2017-18 SS. As on January 15, 2019, Karnataka has produced 2.67 MT of sugar, with 65 sugar mills were in operation, against 2.13 MT on the corresponding date in 2018.
As per the second advance estimates, other states such as Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Uttarakhand are expected to produce 6.2 MT, about 0.25 MT more than last season’s production. Ouput as on January 15 in Tamil Nadu was 0.2 MT, Gujarat was 0.53 MT, Bihar 0.32 MT, AP & Telangana 0.31 MT, Punjab 0.2 MT, Haryana 0.22 MT, Uttarakhand 0.14 MT and MP & Chhattisgarh 0.17 MT.