Media Release
· Sugar season 2012-13 has come to an end with only 45 sugar mills are currently operational till 30th April, 2013 as against about 100 sugar mills, which were crushing sugarcane last year during same corresponding period. During 2012-13 sugar season, 522 sugar mills were under sugarcane crushing operation.
· Till date sugar mills have crushed about 2430 lakh tonne of sugarcane, to produce 245.2 lakh tonne of sugar with 10.09% reported recoveries across states. However, this year total sugarcane crush is only about 1% lesser, but sugar production is about 3% lesser as compared to same corresponding period during last year. This is due to lesser reported recoveries across country, which is about 0.17 points lesser than last year.
· Maharashtra, this year again, being leading sugar producing state, produced about 79.7 lakh tonne of sugar by crushing 699 lakh tonne of sugarcane with 11.40% reported recovery. Currently, only 4 mills (two in Satara district and two in Nagpur district) are under crushing operation against more than 40 last year. Till date sugar production is about 10% lesser than last year during same corresponding period. Sugar mills this year crushed 8% lesser sugarcane with about 0.21 point lesser reported recoveries than last year till 30th April. Marathwada region, which contributes about 18-20% in the total state sugar production, this year has produced 22% lesser sugar than last year, and again is reeling under water shortage crisis. While Pune & Kolhapur zones together produced only 6% lesser sugar as compared to last year.
· Uttar Pradesh crushing season is also comes to an end with only 9 sugar mills are operational. Till date state has produced 74.3 lakh tonne of sugar will 808 lakh tonne of sugarcane crushing with 9.19% reported recovery. Due to 0.12 points better reported recoveries than last year, till date state has produced 7% higher sugar with only 5% higher sugarcane crush than last year. Western & Central UP have reported better recoveries than last year, while Eastern has reported lower.
· Karnataka has already closed crushing operations with 33.6 lakh tonne of sugar production as against of 37.2 lakh tonne of sugar production last year. During last year, about 5 mills were still crushing and seasonal total production was 38.72 lakh tonne. This year 10.44% sugar recovery were 0.56 points lesser than last year.
· Tamil Nadu is still operational with 29 mills as against 41 mills under crushing during last year. Till date state has produced 15.75 lakh tonne of sugar which is about 1% lesser than last year. Andhra Pradesh is almost closed with only 2 mills are crushing and till date produced 9.9 lakh tonne of sugar as against 11.1 lakh tonne last year.