Crushing operations for the current 2015-16 sugar season started in late October and early November in a few parts of the country. As on November 15, 175 mills have started crushing against 155 at the comparable time in the 2014-15 sugar season. Till November 15, sugar mills had produced 7.61 lakh tonnes of sugar against 5.74 lakh tonnes in the the corresponding period last year, according to data from the Indian Sugar Mills’ Association (ISMA)
In Maharashtra, 114 sugar mills were in operation and produced 4.31 lakh tonnes as on November 15. In 2014, 97 sugar mills were in operation as on November 15 and they produced 3.10 lakh tonnes.
In Karnataka, there were 30 sugar mills in operation against 25 sugar mills. As on November 15, sugar production in the State was 1.60 lakh tonnes, which is almost similar to the production of last season on November 15, 2014. 16 out of 17 sugar mills in Gujarat have started crushing operations in the month of October 2015 itself and these mills have produced 1.10 lakh tonnes of sugar till November 15. Last year, the same number of mills were in operation in the State and had produced 0.78 lakh tonnes of sugar.
In the case of Tamil Nadu, 6 sugar mills were in operation as on November 15, 2015 and sugar production was 0.40 lakh tonnes, as compared with 0.12 lakh tonnes produced by 6 mills in the year-earlier period.
Two mills in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana started their crushing in early November and had produced 5,000 tonnes of sugar till November 15. Last year 6 sugar mills were in operation and had produced 12,000 tonnes of sugar up to November 15, 2014.
As per reports submitted by sugar factories to the Government of India, sugar mills exported about 0.80 lakh tonnes of sugar in the month of October, 2015. However, there are reports that sugar mills have already made contracts for export of about 2 to 3 lakh tonnes in the month of November, 2015.
