Sugar production till February 29, 2020, in the current sugar season (SS) has declined 22% to 19.48 million tonne (MT), against 24.93 MT produced in the same period last season.
From October 1, 2019, till February 29, 2020, there were 453 sugar mills in operations, against 520 mills in the same period last sugar season. Nearly, 68 mills across the country have ended operations by February 29, 2020, said Indian Sugar Mills’ Association (Isma) on Tuesday.
In Maharashtra, production till February end was much lower at 5.7 MT, against 9.28 MT produced in the same period last season. In the current 2019-20 SS, of the 145 operating mills , 25 have ended crushing due to non-availability of cane in their area.
In Uttar Pradesh, 119 mills in operation, were producing 7.68 MT till February 29, against 7.38 MT produced by 117 mills as on February end last season.
In Karnataka, 63 mills have produced 3.26 MT, against 4.17 MT produced by 66 mills which operated till February 28, 2019. During the current season, of the 63 mills in operation, 32 have already ended crushing. Last year, of the 66 mills in operations, 34 sugar mills had ended crushing operations, Isma highlighted.
During this period, the pace of daily crushing this year is much less than last year, Isma pointed out.
Tamil Nadu’s 21 mills started crushing so far during 2019-20 SS and produced 3.20 lakh tonne, against 4.63 lakh tonne by 32 sugar mills in 2018-19 SS till February end.
Gujarat has produced 6.83 lakh tonne till date and of the 15 mills, one has ended crushing. Last year, 16 mills in operation were producing 8.79 lakh tonne till February end, of which two had stopped crushing.
In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 18 mills have produced 3.65 lakh tonne, against 5.70 lakh tonne produced by 25 mills in 2018-19 SS. Of these, four have stopped crushing. Last year at this period, of 25 mills in operation, one had stopped operations.
In Bihar, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, production has been in the order of 5.74 lakh tonne, 2.85 lakh tonne, 4.50 lakh tonne, 4.30 lakh tonne and 3.30 lakh tonne, respectively. According to market reports, contracts for exports have been made for a quantity of 35 lakh tonne, of which 22-23 lakh tonne have been moved out of the mills for shipment.