Sugar production has increased by 7% this year with nearly 488 mills having produced 110.90 lakh tonne till January 15, up 7.08 lakh tonne over the same period last year. This is despite low availability of cane as compared with last year, said the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).

In the 2014-15 sugar season, 494 sugar mills were in operation and had produced 103.82 lakh tonne during the period till January 15, said ISMA. The sugar mills have started their cane crushing operations earlier this year, and therefore, despite lower availability of sugarcane as compared with last year, sugar production is higher. As compared with the 2014-15 season, sugar production in Karnataka, UP and Maharashtra in the current season till January 15 has been higher by 3.4 lakh tonne, 2 lakh tonne and 1 lakh tonne, respectively.  Most of the sugar mills in Maharashtra will close earlier this year as compared with last season, mainly because of lower cane production therein.

Maharashtra has crushed about 415.9 lakh tonne of sugarcane with 168 sugar mills under crushing operation. Till January 15, 2015, Maharashtra had produced 44 lakh tonne of sugar with 10.6% recovery.  Last year till date, 173 mills were operational, which crushed about 404.5 lakh tonne of sugarcane to produce 43 lakh tonne of sugar.
In UP, 116 mills were in operation during the current 2015-16 season and these have produced 27.07 lakh tonne till January 15, 2016. In the 2014-15 season, as on January 15, 2015, 118 sugar mills were in operation and they had produced 25 lakh tonne of sugar.

The other major sugar producing state, Karnataka, has produced 21.12 lakh tonne till January 15, 2016 and there are 64 sugar mills in operation as on that date. In the 2014-15 season, as on January 15, 2015, 63 mills were in operation which have produced 17.71 lakh tonne of sugar.

In Tamil Nadu, 25 sugar mills are in operation and they have produced 1.60 lakh tonne till January 15, 2016. This is 0.50 lakh tonne higher than the sugar production of last year same period, when 20 sugar mills were in operation.
Gujarat has produced 5.70 lakh tonne of sugar with 20 mills in operation. Last year, 19 sugar mills were in operation till January 15, 2015 and they had produced 4.97 lakh tonne.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, as compared with last year, four sugar mills have not started crushing operations during the 2015-16 season. As on January 15, 2016, 26 sugar mills have produced 3.27 lakh tonne as against 3.99 lakh tonne produced by 30 mills in the 2014-15 season on January 15, 2015.