Sugar production falls by 17 per cent over last season

NEW DELHI: Sugar production in the country touched 115.4 lakh tonne in the current season though is still lagging behind by around 17% from last season’s production same time last year.

Around 487 sugar mills are operational in the country as against 509 during the last season, said Indian Sugar Mills Association ( ISMA) in a release on sugar production till January 31st.

“Lower production as compared to the same period last year is mainly because of late start of the sugar mills in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh,” said ISMA.

Maharashtra has produced 40.75 lakh tonne of sugar with 152 sugar mills under operation. Last year till date, 166 sugar mills were operational which produced 48.5 lakh tonne of sugar. The recovery rate in the state is 10.54%.

Uttar Pradesh has produced 27.6 lakh tonne of sugar with 119 mills under crushing operation, with a recovery rate of 7%, lower than last year when it was 8%.

Karnataka has produced 21.5 lakh tonne as compared to 24.3 lakh tonne produced up to 31st January last year, with 59 sugar mills operating this season.

Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have produced 5.10 lakh tonne, 6.10 lakh tonne and 4 lakh tonne, as compared to 5.67 lakh tonne, 6.82 lakh tonne and 6.45 lakh tonne, respectively last year.

“Due to depressed sugar prices, the realisation for the sugar mills is substantially lower as compared to the cost of production of sugar. The mills are, therefore, unable to pay the cane price of the farmers on time. It is feared that as the season progresses, the cane price arrears is only expected to go up further,” said ISMA.

It has also estimated all India cane price arrears at the end of January 2014 to be around Rs 10,000 crore.