Sugar production upto January 15, 2020 in the current sugar season (October-September) has declined by 26% to 10.88 million tonne as compared to 14.74 million tonne produced in the same period last season, a fall of 3.85 million tonne.
There were only 440 sugar mills in operation during the period as compared to 511 mills in the period ended January 15, 2019, said Indian Sugar Mills’ Association (ISMA) on Friday.
Based on satellite images of the cane area remaining to be harvested, trend of recovery, yield and withdrawal percentage of sugarcane achieved so far, ISMA will come out with its second advance estimates of sugar production for 2019-20 SS in February 2020, said a press release.
In Uttar Pradesh, 119 sugar mills have produced 4.37 million tonne for the period upto January 15, 2020, with an average recovery of 10.83%. In 2018-19 SS, 117 sugar mills were in operation as on January 15, 2019, and they had produced 4.19 million tonne with an average recovery of 10.97%.
In Maharashtra, 139 sugar mills were in operation and have produced 2.55 million tonne till January 15, 2020, as against 189 sugar mills which had produced 5.72 million tonne last year upto same period. As per reports of Commissioner (Sugar), Maharashtra, three sugar mills — one each in Ahmednagar, Aurangabad and Beed districts — have closed their operations mainly due to non-availability of labour for harvesting and less availability of sugarcane.
In Karnataka, 63 sugar mills were in operation and have produced 2.19 million tonne as compared to 2.67 million tonne produced by 65 sugar mills in 2018-19 SS.· In Gujarat, 15 sugar mills were operating in the current season upto January 15 and they have produced 3.72 lakh tonne In the 2018-19 SS, 16 sugar mills were in operation who had produced 5.42 lakh tonne till that date. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 17 sugar mills were in operation upto January 15, 2020 and have produced 1.85 lakh tonne, which is about 1 lakh tonne lower than the sugar produced by 24 mills in 2018-19 SS in the same period. One factory in Telangana is reported to have stopped its crushing operations in the current season.
In Tamil Nadu, 17 sugar mills were operating as compared to 28 mills and have produced about 1.50 lakh tonne till January 15, 2020 as against 2.29 lakh tonne produced last year on the corresponding date.
Mills in Bihar have produced 3.30 lakh tonne, Haryana 2.00 lakh tonne, Punjab 2.05 lakh tonne, Uttarakhand 1.52 lakh tonne and Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh 1.63 lakh tonne, till 15th January, 2020.
The total finalised quantity of ethanol to be supplied after first tender stood at 156 crore litre, out of which the finalised quantity to be supplied made from B heavy molasses and sugarcane juice stands at 61.63 crore litre and 10.60 crore litre, respectively. It is learnt that the second round of tender is expected to be floated by OMC’s shortly.
ISMA further said that as per reports, cane price arrears as on November 30, 2019 was around Rs 4,500 crore, for the cane purchased during the season 2018-19, while the same figure for the season 2017-18 stood at around Rs 2,500 core as on November end, 2018.