PRESS RELEASE
· Sugar production upto the end of November 2013 in the 2013-14 sugar season is at 8 lakh tons, which is substantially lower to 24.4 lakh tons produced in the last season upto the end of November, 2012.
· As compared to 400 sugar mills which were crushing sugarcane at the end of November 2012, only 208 sugar mills have started crushing operations till now in this season.
· The main reason for just about half the sugar mills having started till now as compared to last year is because of the uncertainty on the cane pricing for 2013-14. The State Govts in UP as well as in Karnataka have fixed unviable sugarcane prices which has deterred mills to start crushing due to obvious losses expected at these prices and resultant expected cane price arrears of farmers.
· Similarly, as against 149 sugar mills which had started crushing in Maharashtra, only 102 sugar mills have started crushing as of now in the State. As a result, only 4.31 lakh tons of sugar has been produced in the current season as compared to 10.24 lakh tons produced last year upto end of November.
· In UP, as compared to 90 sugar mills which were crushing sugarcane at the end of November last year, only 21 sugar mills have started sugarcane crushing this season, which is just about 20-22% of the last year’s mills.
· The 3rd largest sugar producing State viz. Karnataka, has also produced only 2 lakh tons in the first 2 months of the current sugar season in comparison to 7.6 lakh tons produced last year, when during last year 56 sugar mills were under operation then and only 37 sugar mills are in operation now.
· Crushing has not begun in Uttarakhand and Bihar at all till now, whereas the situation is not good in the States of Punjab and Haryana also, where only 1 and 6 sugar mills respectively have started crushing as against 11 and 9 last year.
· Similarly, only 8 sugar mills have started crushing in Tamil Nadu against 20 last year and 9 in Andhra Pradesh against 21 last year.
· In other words, the country has produced around 16 lakh tons lower, this season till November end, than what was produced at the same time last year, which is just about 1/3rd of the total sugar production of last year in the 2 months.