Crushing season may begin in Dec

The sugarcane crushing season in Uttarakhand is expected to begin in the first week of December this year even as the government said there was no major damage to the sugarcane crop due to heavy floods during the monsoon season.

“The crushing season is expected to begin in December and there is no major damage to the sugarcane crop due to floods,” said sugarcane secretary Om Prakash. “After rains, we need 35 days of bright sunshine which we hopefully get,” said Prakash.

The government is expecting an increase of 17,000 hectares of sugarcane acreage in the year 2010-11 which is 18 per cent as compared to previous year, largely owing to steep hike in the sugarcane price last season.

The sugarcane department, in a report, said the total sugarcane acreage in the state in 2009-10 was 93,000 hectares which is now expected to reach 110,000 hectares in the next season. “Farmers were happy after they got the sugarcane price as high as Rs 270 per quintal,” said a government official.

Last year, Uttarakhand had announced its state advised price (SAP) for sugarcane at Rs 192-197, which was the highest in the country with a promise of hefty bonus.

Though the government is expecting a production of 49,200,000 quintals of sugarcane in the coming season, it is hoping that the production would now touch as high as 60,500,000 quintals an increase of 22 per cent.