Kolhapur: Over 200 mills in the state have produced 109.67 lakh tonnes of sugar since Nov 15 last year, surpassing the last season’s output of 105.23 lakh tonnes, despite delayed start to crushing season as well as subpar monsoon last year.

The sugar cane crushing season usually begins in mid-Oct. It, however, began on Nov 15 last year and is set to end soon.“The rainfall in the sugar belt during the Dec-Feb period helped push up production in spite of the mills crushing less sugar cane this season as against the last,” a miller said.
The mills have crushed 107 lakh tonnes of sugar cane to produce 109.6 lakh tonnes of sugar, making for a recovery rate of 10.26%. In the last season, 105 lakh tonnes of sugar cane were crushed to produce 105.23 lakh tonnes of sugar, leading to a recovery rate of 10%.
“The rainfall in the Dec-Jan period in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu contributed to the rise in the recovery rate. Nearly 20-25 lakh tonnes of sugar have been produced, which is more than anticipated,” said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.
Besides, 207 mills started crushing sugar cane in the current season, slightly less than the last season’s count of 211.
The state govt’s ministerial panel had last year decided to postpone the start of the crushing season anticipating less sugar recovery in view of poor monsoon rainfall.
Naiknavare said the organisation had approached the Centre to do away with the restrictions on ethanol production from sugar cane juice, sugar syrup and B-heavy molasses as the investments put in by the millers into setting up new distilleries and expansion were at stake.

“The production has been increased now. There is less chance that the sugar prices will soar. The Centre on Wednesday also allowed the distillers to divert 7 lakh tonnes of B-heavy molasses for ethanol production,” he said.
According to the estimates, around 3.25 lakh tonnes of excess sugar will be diverted to ethanol production, from which 38 crore litres of ethanol worth of Rs 2,300 crore will be produced.