Indian sugar mills produced 321.2 lakh tonnes of sugar (LT) till April 30, nearly 3 per cent more than 311.83 LT produced during the corresponding period last year, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said on Friday.

The sugar production is 14 LT more than what was previously estimated for the entire season and it may go up further to 330 LT as many mills in Uttar Pradesh and other states are still crushing sugarcane, ISMA said.

Considering the opening balance of 107 LT on October 1, last year, and estimated production of 330 LT and domestic consumption of 260 LT as well as estimated exports of 30 LT, sugar stocks at the end of the current season are expected to be 147 LT.

“The sugar recovery in Northern India has been substantially better than the recovery achieved in the last season. In the other parts of the country, including Maharashtra and Karnataka, the sugar recovery is better than last year, though not as high as achieved in North,” it said.

Even though the quantum of sugarcane available for crushing in this season was less than that in the previous season, higher recovery would result in higher production this year.

ISMA further said that the pace of sugar production in the last 15-20 days has slowed down, with large number of sugar mills shutting their crushing operations faster than what was seen in the last season.

While Maharashtra produced 107 LT of sugar till April 30, the mills in Uttar Pradesh accounted for 112.65 LT and 68 UP mills are still crushing, it said.

According to ISMA, the field reports from Maharashtra indicate that sugarcane planting is significantly lower than the harvest in the current season.

Decrease in Rainfall, increase in ethanol

Additionally, due to substantially lower rainfall during last season’s monsoon (June to September 2018) as well as during the retreating monsoon (October to December 2018), water in most of the reservoirs in Maharashtra is much below normal levels, which remained so, for most of the last 7 to 8 months. Therefore, the indications are that the acreage under sugarcane in Maharashtra for next year’s harvesting will be significantly lower than the current season.

Therefore, at an all India level there is a general expectation that the sugarcane availability will be much lower in 2019-20 than what has been in the current season, thereby reducing sugar production next year.

Further, with expansion and addition of ethanol productions capacities at a fast pace, the sugar industry will divert larger quantities of ‘B’ heavy molasses/sugarcane juice, away from sugar in the last season. That, will further reduce sugar production in the next season.

ISMA will obtain satellite images of the sugarcane area across the country in latter part of June 2019 to make its preliminary estimates of sugarcane availability and sugar production for 2019-20 sugar season, ISMA said.