Dec 2 Indian sugar mills produced 2.74 million tonnes of the sweetener between Oct. 1 and November. 30, over 17 percent higher than a year earlier, as mills in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh started crushing earlier, a producers' body said on Friday.

 

By end of the November, 365 sugar mills in the country have started crushing operations, up from 340 mills during the same period last year, Indian Sugar Mills Association said.

 

The country is likely to produce 23.4 million tonnes sugar in 2016/17, down about 7 percent from a year earlier as back-to-back droughts ravaged cane crops in the top producing western state of Maharashtra.