Sugar production up 19% till Jan 15

The sugar industry is steadily heading towards a bumper output this year. Till January 15 this year, total sugar output was recorded at 10.45 million tonne, a rise of 19%.

During the same period last year, total sweetener output was witnessed at 8.77 million tonne, a release from Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said.

Sugar producing states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have shown an increase of 22% over last year in their sugar production data, the release said.

Higher sugar production of Uttar Pradesh was mainly because of the fact that the sugar mills in the state had to start their crushing much earlier than usual, as directed by the state government. Arrival of gur in UP mandis was also less by about 17% till December 2011 compared to last year, which clearly shows lesser diversion of cane to local sweetener for manufacturing gur resulting in more cane availability to sugar mills for crushing.

Sugar mills in UP have crushed 347 lakh tonnes of cane till January 15 compared to 271 lakh tonnes. Though the quantum of cane crushing was higher, the early crushing affected the recovery which was lower at 8.49% compared to 8.85% last year.

The situation in Maharashtra is slightly different where the cane crushing was at 346 lakh tonne compared to 315 lakh tonne. But due to higher recovery of 10.71% achieved this year as compared to 10.25% last year, the sugar production is higher.

The state was expecting lower cane yield but the increase in area under cane and much higher sugar recovery compensates for the lower yield and the production in Maharashtra may be similar or higher to last year.

The number of sugar factories crushing was 516 compared to 498.

The industry has estimated a total sugar output at 26 million tonne this year as against 24.7 million tonne during the last season.

Meanwhile, ISMA Secretary General Abinash Verma met with the Finance Minister Pranab Mukharjee on Monday and apprised him with the problems faced by the industry due to control regime, periodical release and mandatory levy of 10% through the PDS.

He also stressed on the disproportionate cane price fixation system by the state governments without considering the viability issue for sugar mills.