MEDIA RELEASE

· 50 sugar mills across the country have closed their crushing operations for the sugar season 2012-13, as at the end of Feb, 2013, against only 21 last year.

· 452 mills have crushed about 190 million tons of sugarcane, to produce 188 lakh tons of sugar. This is 60 thousand tons less than last year, despite almost similar sugarcane crush in both years.

· A fortnight back i.e. on 15th Feb, 2013, sugar production was 2.7% more than last year. But, as was being estimated, the production has already started slowing down, and the sugar production up to end of Feb, 2013, is 0.31% less than last year.

· Maharashtra, which was 2.8% ahead in sugar production over last year till a fortnight back, has also lost the pace. About 30 sugar mills in the State (22 in the last 15 days alone) have closed their crushing operations. The State has produced 65.36 lakh tons of sugar up to end of Feb this year, against 65.02 lakh tons last year. Sugar recovery is about 11.15%, which is again 0.18% less than last year.

· 119 sugar mills are operating in Uttar Pradesh and 50.37 lakh tons of sugars have been produced till date, at 8.95% rate of recovery. A fortnight back, the State was trailing behind last year by 4% in sugar production. Even though this gap has widened to 5%, the gap is due to 15 days of continuous cold and unseasonal rains, which hampered sugarcane arrival to the mills. Last year, the State had produced 52.9 lakh tons with 122 mills, upto Feb. 2012. As compared to last year, sugar mills in UP have crushed 34 lakh tons less sugarcane, though with 0.1% higher recovery than last year. Western Uttar Pradesh is showing better recoveries, but Eastern is lower and Central is same as that of last year.

· Karnataka has also slowed down. 22 mills in the State have already closed their operations for the season. It has produced 30.2 lakh tons of sugar at 10.41% recovery. Till last year, State had produced 3% less sugar at this time, with 0.31 point% lesser recovery.

· AP has produced 8.3 lakh tonne of sugar with 28 mills under operation, which is about 3% less sugar production than last year, with 9.62% recovery. This is about 0.14% less than last year's recoveries.

· Tamil Nadu has produced 9.3 lakh tons of sugar with 44 mills under operation at 8.8% recovery. Tamil Nadu is continuously reporting lesser recovery on account of weaker north –east monsoon last year along with drought impact on varieties like CoV 94101 which cover good acreage under some mills.