Sugar production in India goes up; Maharashtra on top, ahead of UP

Some sweet sounds can be heard in the sugar industry. As per reports from the Indian Sugar Mills’ Association (ISMA), as of February 15, a whopping 208.89 lakh tonnes of sugar has been produced by the mills, as compared to 170.01 lakh tonnes produced till the corresponding date last year.

Maharashtra stands on top in Sugar Season (SS) 2020-21. The sugar year runs from October to September. As of February 15, it has produced 75.46 lakh tonnes of sugar, compared with 43.38 lakh tonnes produced in SS 2019-20 in the same period. The mills in Uttar Pradesh (UP) have produced 65.13 lakh tonnes, compared with 66.34 lakh tonnes on the corresponding date of last year. As for Karnataka, till February 15, it has produced 39.07 lakh tonnes of sugar, as compared to 30.80 lakh tonnes produced last year in the same period.

Gujarat has produced 6.55 lakh tonnes of sugar. Last year, its sugar mills had produced 5.95 lakh tonnes of sugar till Feb 15. In Tamil Nadu, the production is down from 2.63 lakh tonnes to 2.25 lakh tonnes in 2019-20 SS on the corresponding date. The remaining states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha have collectively produced 20.43 lakh tonnes of sugar till February 15, 2021.

As far as the number of sugar mills in the country is concerned, out of the 497 which had started crushing in 2020-21 SS, 33 have stopped crushing operations, as of February 15, due to the non-availability of sugarcane. Last year, 447 sugar mills had operated, out of which 20 had stopped crushing on the corresponding date last year.

In Maharashtra, 183 sugar mills were operating as of February 15. In the current year, two sugar mills have closed their operations. Last year 140 mills had operated, out of which five mills had stopped their crushing on the corresponding date. In UP, 116 sugar mills are in operation currently while four mills have stopped their crushing. There had been 119 mills on the corresponding date last year.

In the case of Karnataka, 66 sugar mills had commenced operations this year. Out of these, 17 have stopped crushing as of Feb 15. Last year in the same period, out of 63 sugar mills which operated, 13 sugar mills had ended their crushing operations by February 15.

As per market reports, about 7 lakh tonnes of sugar has been physically exported from India up to January 31 in the current sugar year, which also includes exports against 2019-20 SS Maximum Admissible Export Quantity (MAEQ), which was extended up to December 31, 2020. It is estimated that out of the total exports done so far, about 4 lakh tonnes has been exported under the current year’s export policy.

As per reports from the trade, around 25 lakh tonnes of sugar export has been contracted for. This is a very encouraging trend, considering that only 45 days has passed since the export quota was announced on December 31, 2020, for the current season. A substantial part of the contracted exports is for Indonesia. According to ISMA, once the clarification sought from the Ministry of Commerce for exports to Iran is received, India will see many more export contracts happening very quickly.

Sugar mills are facing difficulties in the lifting of ethanol by oil marketing companies (OMCs), even though they have allocated about 325 crore litres of ethanol supplies in 2020-21. It seems that OMCs and their depots are not fully geared up, especially in newer depots and states, to take more quantity of ethanol. However, an early solution to the problem is expected, feels ISMA.