The sugar production in India has registered a decline of 1.19 per cent during the 2023-24 market year (October-September 21) as recorded up to February this year. Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) released a report for the production of sugar to the extent of 25.53 million tonnes (MT). In comparison to the past year, the production had decreased from 25.84 MT.
ISMA, in its second assessment for the year, has assumed that the volume of the cane sugar production would be 10 per cent less than the previous year’s figure (33.05 MT, as compared to the 2022-2023 marketing year’s output of 36.62 MT). It is for the reduced sugar being depressed by the farmers in the major sugarcane states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
Additionally, among the declines, Uttar Pradesh, the second-largest sugar output, achieved 7.81 MT for the current year, up from 7 MT for the same period last year. Maharashtra, the year’s highest producer (9.09 MT to 9.51 MT), experienced a drop, as did Karnataka, the third largest producer (4.7 MT to 5.12 MT). Gujarat and Tamil Nadu also noted the production of sugar to be lower at 7,70,000 tons.
The report singles out this closure rate of sugar mills in Maharashtra and Karnataka being lower than the previous year is a shocking revelation. This idea delineates for us the prolonging of the crushing season for these states over the pre-existing marketing year. To be more specific, by the end of February this year number of the sugar factories already stood at 466 and it was 447 in the same period in the previous year.
Further, despite the fact that 49 plants in Maharashtra and Karnataka have been automated this year, the results are far from the 74 closures reported the year before. On a national scale, 65 factories producing all sorts of diesel fuels have paused operations, compared to 86 units operating in the same manner during the same season of 2022-2023.
