Maharashtra sugar output up 62%

Maharashtra has produced a record sugar output of 8.42 million tonnes between October 1 and May 7, up from 5.19 million tonnes a year ago, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director, Maharashtra State Co-operative Sugar Factories Federation.

"It is a record high. It was during 2000-2001 season that Maharashtra produced such a huge output," Naiknavare said. In 2000-2001 sugar season (October-September), Maharashtra produced 6.7 million tonnes of the sweetener.

The largest producer of sugar in India crushed 73.5 million tonnes sugarcane between October 1 and Monday compared with 44.4 million tonnes in the same period a year ago, he said.

With a modest 2 million tonnes of sugarcane still left to be crushed, the federation expects the state to end the current sugar season with 8.5 million tonnes, up from 5.32 million tonnes a year ago.

Higher sugarcane availability, rise in productivity, and absence of pests have aided the record production of sugar, Naiknavare said. The number of co-operative mills operating this season has risen to 141 from 121 last year and private mills have slightly increased to 22 from 21, he said.

"The rise in co-operative mills operating this year is largely due to better availability of cane and some of the units, which were declared sick, have been either leased out or have secured loans to revive their operations," Naiknavare said.

Sugar output in the state in 2007-08 (October-September) is pegged at a whopping 8.80 million tonnes with an average recovery rate of 11.5 per cent.

However, the rise in output is only likely to deepen the crisis being faced by most of sugar mills in Maharashtra.