As on December 15, 2018, 462 sugar mills were crushing sugarcane for the sugar season (SS) 2018-19, and they have produced 70.52 lakh tonne of sugar, i e 1.48 lakh tonne (2.1 per cent) higher than the sugar production on the corresponding date of previous sugar season, of 69.04 lakh tonne of sugar. This was stated by the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) recently. Last year, on the corresponding date, 476 mills were operating.
In Maharashtra, 178 sugar mills are in operation, and they have produced 29 lakh tonne of sugar till December 15, 2018. In SS 2017-18, there were 176 sugar mills in operation as on December 15, 2017, and they produced 25.70 lakh tonne. The average sugar recovery achieved so far is 10.18 per cent as compared to 10.10 per cent last year on the same date.
In Uttar Pradesh, till December 15, 2018, 116 mills produced 18.94 lakh tonne of sugar lower than last year, when the same number of sugar mills had together produced 23.37 lakh tonne on the corresponding period.
The third largest producer of sugar, viz Karnataka, produced 13.94 lakh tonne of sugar till December 15, 2018. This is slightly higher than the 11.24 lakh tonne of sugar produced in SS 2017-18 as on December 15, 2017. During the current SS 2018-19, 63 sugar mills are in operation as on December 15, 2018, as compared to 62 operated on the corresponding date of 2017.
As regards Gujarat, 16 sugar mills were in operation and they produced 3.10 lakh tonne of sugar till December 15, 2018. In SS 2017-18, as on December 15, 2017, 17 sugar mills were in operation and they produced 2.75 lakh tonne of sugar till that date.
In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 18 sugar mills could start crushing till December 15, 2018, and they produced about 1.05 lakh tonne of sugar till that date. Last year, 20 sugar mills were in operation on December 15, 2017, and they produced 0.98 lakh tonne.
There are five sugar mills in operation in Tamil Nadu, and sugar production till December 15, 2018 was about 0.85 lakh tonne, as compared to 0.47 lakh tonne produced by 19 sugar mills as on December 15, 2017.
In regard to Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, there were nine, 16, 14 and 19 sugar mills in operation respectively, and they produced 1.36 lakh tonne, 0.35 lakh tonne, 0.90 lakh tonne and 0.65 lakh tonne, respectively.
The production in Maharashtra and Karnataka are slightly higher than last year at the same time, because the mills have started their sugarcane crushing earlier as compared to the previous season. But sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh started their crushing this year slightly later as compared to last year, and hence have produced less sugar than the previous sugar season at the same time.
Due to lower than normal rainfall and heavy infestation of white grub in several sugarcane-growing districts of Maharashtra, sugar production in some of the important sugarcane growing areas in the state will be adversely affected, and therefore, it is expected to produce less than last year.
