The 497 sugar mills operational in the country have together produced nearly 209 lakh tonnes of sugar till February 15 as against 170 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period last year, an increase of nearly 23 per cent.
According to a press release issued by industry body ISMA, while 183 sugar mills in Maharashtra produced 75.46 lakh tonnes of sugar till February 15 this year, against 140 mills producing 43.38 lakh tonnes last year, in Uttar Pradesh 120 sugar mills have produced 65.13 lakh tonnes of sugar against last year’s 66.34 lakh tonnes by 119 sugar mills.
Karnataka, on the other hand, had achieved a nearly 30 per cent increase in sugar production, with its 66 sugar mills producing 39.07 lakh tonnes of sugar, as compared to 30.80 lakh tonnes produced by 63 sugar mills in the same period last year.
In Tamil Nadu, 25 sugar mills commenced have produced 2.25 lakh tonnes of sugar in the season so far, as compared to 2.63 lakh tonnes produced by 21 sugar mills in 2019-20 season.
Gujarat’s 15 sugar mills, too, had produced 6.55 lakh tonnes of sugar against 5.95 lakh tonnes produced in the same period last year by a similar number of mills.
Stating that the sugar mills were facing difficulties in lifting ethanol by OMCs, despite being allocated 325 crore litres of ethanol supplies in 2020 – 21 season, the release said that the OMCs and their depots, especially in newer depots and states, are not fully geared up to take more quantity of ethanol. “However, we expect an early solution to the problem by the OMCs”, as done by them in the past when they had taken prompt action to negate any effect on supplies last year during lockdown,” it went on to add.