India’s sugar production at 30.67 million tonnes (mt), will be 3.55 mt more than last sugar season. But, mills are confident that they would be able to sell 0.8 to one mt more in domestic market compared with last year and export seven mt, which is 1.1 mt more than the previous season.
This is expected to leave the sugar industry with 2-2.5 mt less sugar stocks at the end of the season to September 30, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said on Thursday. According to the Department of Food and Public Distribution records, closing stocks at the end of the last season was 110 lt.
As on June 15, the ISMA said only five sugar mills are continuing with sugarcane crushing and the rest of the mills across the country have closed crushing operations already.
In Uttar Pradesh, till June 15, 120 mills produced 11.06 mt of sugar which was over 1.5 mt lower than the production of 12.63 mt last year. One mill in the State is still continuing crushing operations.
In Maharashtra, the crushing season concluded on May 31 and mills of the State produced 10.698 mt of sugar, which is about 4.50 mt higher compared with 6.2 mt produced in the previous sugar season.
In Karnataka, where crushing concluded by April 15, mills produced 4.17 mt of sugar, which is 0.787 mt more than last year. One mill, however, commenced crushing during a pre-decided special session. Last year during one such special session, mills in the State produced 0.114 mt of sugar.
In Tamil Nadu, 28 mills produced 0.67 mt of sugar compared with 0.612 mt last year, but three mills have started operations for special season. A similar special season last year produced an additional 0.2 mt of sugar in the previous season. The rest of the sugar-producing States produced a combined 4.139 mt till June 15, ISMA said.
As per information provided by mills and estimations made by ISMA, sugar sales in May was as 2.235 mt against the sales quota of 2.2 mt. Total sales in the current season up to May are estimated at 17.496 mt against domestic sales quota of 16.9 mt given by the government. Last year, during the same period sugar sales were estimated at 16.64 mt against the sales quota of 16.1 mt. “This would mean that sales in the current year up to May are 0.856 mt higher or about five per cent higher, than the last year corresponding period,” ISMA said.