Sugar production still lags behind past season, sales escalate

NEW DELHI: As cane crushing in the country reaches the fag end, sugar sale is escalating but the production is still lagging behind last season. Till March 15, 2014, the country has produced 193.8 lakh tonne sugar.

This is 8% lower than the sugar production during same time last sugar season, said Indian Sugar Mills Association (Isma). Isma revised its estimate on sugar production for the current season (October 2013 – September 2014) to 238 lakh tonne from earlier 251 lakh tonne.

From October 2013 till end of February 2014, about 100 lakh tonne sugar has been dispatched by mills for sale in the domestic market, compared to 96 lakh tonne sent during the same period last year. Maharashtra has produced 64.10 lakh tonne sugar at an average of 11.2% sugar recovery. Last year, during the same period, sugar mills in the state had produced 72.3 lakh tonne.

Uttar Pradesh has produced 50.7 lakh tonne till date and is trailing by 8 lakh tonne against last year’s sugar production.

Among the other states, Karnataka has produced 34.50 lakh tonne sugar, Tamil Nadu produced 8 lakh tonne and Andhra Pradesh produced 8.8 lakh tonne.

Till February, total production of raw sugar in the country was around 11 lakh tonne in the current sugar season. About 6 lakh tonne of raw sugar has been exported along with 5.2 lakh tonne of white sugar.