Sugar output up by 8% till mid-January

India's sugar production has increased by 8.32 per cent year-on-year to 14.6 million tonne till January 15 but overall output at the end of the season will be lower than the previous year, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said on Monday. In a statement, the ISMA, which represents private sugar mills, said Uttar Pradesh had crushed 38.21 million tonnes of sugarcane and produced 4.19 million tonnes of sugar till January 15.

Based on satellite images of cane area in January 2019, ISMA said the output in the state would be 11.28 million tonnes in sugar year 2018-19 starting October due to the reduction in yield and increased sugar recovery per cent as against the 12.05 million tonnes in 2017-18. Total sugar production in the country would be around 30.7 million tonnes in 2018-19 as against 32.25 million tonnes in 2017-18.

Maharashtra has produced 5.72 million tonnes till January 15, an increase of 0.7 million tonnes year-on-year basis, and the final output would be 9.5 million tonnes. Another major sugar producing state, Karnataka, has produced 2.67 million tonnes so far and it would produce 4.2 million tonnes at the end of the sugar season.

The industry body said sugar production as on January 15 was 0.2 million tonnes in Tamil Nadu, 0.53 million tonnes in Gujarat, 0.32 million tonnes in Bihar, 0.31 million tonnes in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 0.2 million tonnes in Punjab, 0.22 million tonnes in Haryana, 0.13 million tonnes in Uttarakhand and 0.16 million tonnes in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Cane price arrears as on December 31 was around Rs 19,000 crore, including Rs 2,800 crore of arrears of the previous season.

This is substantially higher from the arrears of around Rs 10,600 crore last season, ISMA said.