Press Release: Sugar production upto 15th March, 2016
· The sugar mills in the country have produced 221.30 lac tons of sugar during the current season upto 15th March, 2016. This is almost at the same level as that of last season’s sugar production upto the corresponding period (221.57 lac tons).
· As on 15th March, 2016, 325 sugar mills were still under operation, which were 473 mills last year at the same time. 189 sugar mills in the country have already closed their operations, out of which 31 are in U.P, 91 in Maharashtra, 36 in Karnataka, 10 mills in Bihar and remaining in other States like Gujarat, A.P & Telangana, Uttarakhand etc.
· Maharashtra sugar mills have produced 76.77 lac tons of sugar as against 84.07 lac tons last year upto 15th March, 2015. As compared to 168 sugar mills which were still crushing sugarcane last season, 86 sugar mills continue to crush sugarcane in this season now.
· The mills in Uttar Pradesh have produced 60.82 lac tons of sugar upto 15th March, 2016 which was 56.25 lac tons at the corresponding period last season. As against 100 sugar mills operating last year at this time, 85 sugar mills are crushing sugarcane now.
· Karnataka sugar mills have produced 38.79 lac tons of sugar and 28 sugar mills are still crushing sugarcane now. Last year, as on 15th March 2015, Karnataka had produced 38 lac tons and 61sugar mills were operating.
· The mills in the other States have produced 44.92 lac tons (Gujarat 10.25; Bihar 4.94; Haryana 4.20; Punjab 4.90; A.P & Telengana 7.47; Tamil Nadu 6.80; Uttarakhand 2.38; Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh 3.50), as compared to 43.25 lac tons produced in the last season.
· As was expected, the sugar production in the current season, which till a few days back was higher than last year for same corresponding period, the sugar production now upto 15th March, 2016 is, for the first time in the season, lower to the sugar production as on 15th March, 2015 last year.
· At the same time last year, 473 sugar mills were under operation. After 16th March 2015, around 62 lac tons of sugar got produced in the balance period in the last sugar season. As compared to that, 325 sugar mills are under operation in the current sugar season, which is lower by 148 numbers of sugar mills. Therefore, as is the expectation, the current year’s sugar production will be around 9% lower than the actual production of 283 lac tons of sugar of last year.
· The trend indicates a shorter tail of crushing and sugar production this year, as compared to last sugar season, and therefore resulting in the lower estimated sugar production in the current season in comparison to the previous one.
· As per reports furnished by sugar mills, contracts have been finalized for 14 lac tons for exports against MIEQ, of which about 11.5 lac tons have already been moved from mills to ports. It is expected that sugar mills can export another 5 to 6 lac tons in the remaining period of the current sugar season.