New Delhi, Mar 3 (IANS): Around 502 sugar mills of the country together produced 233.77 lakh tonnes of sugar in the early five months of the current sugar season 2020-21 as compared to 194.82 lakh tonnes produced by 453 mills last season till February 29, 2020, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said on Wednesday.
Sugar production in the ongoing season 2020-21 (October-September) has increased by 38.95 lakh tonnes or 19.99 per cent from last year.
The largest quantity of sugar has been produced in Maharashtra so far in the ongoing season as sugar production in the state has surged over 67 per cent as compared to last year.
Sugar mills of Maharashtra produced 84.85 lakh tonnes of the sweetener till February 28 this year, compared with 50.70 lakh tonnes produced last year same period.
Out of 188 sugar mills operated in the state in the current season, 12 sugar mills have ended their crushing due to non-availability of cane in their area, most of them in Solapur region while 25 sugar mills had ended their operations.
As on February 28 2021, 176 sugar mills were crushing as against 120 sugar mills last year on February 29, 2020 in Maharashtra.
In Uttar Pradesh, 109 sugar mills are in operation currently, while 11 mills have stopped their crushing operations, most of them in Eastern Uttar Pradesh region. These mills in the state have produced 74.20 lakh tones of sugar till February 28, 2021, compared with 76.86 lakh tonnes produced by 119 mills as on February 29, 2020.
In case of Karnataka, till February 28, 2021, 66 sugar mills operated in the current season and have produced 40.53 lakh tones, as compared to 32.60 lakh tones produced by 63 sugar mills which operated last year, till February 29, 2020.
During the current season, out of 66 mills which operated, 52 mills have already ended their crushing. Last year in the same period, out of 63 sugar mills which operated, 34 sugar mills had ended their crushing operations by Feb 29, 2020.
Gujarat has produced 7.49 lakh tones of sugar till February 28, 2021.
Out of 15 sugar mills operated this year, one sugar mill has ended its operation.
Last year, similar number of sugar mills were in operation and they had produced 6.83 lakh tonnes of sugar till February 29, 2020.
In case of Tamil Nadu, 26 sugar mills commenced their crushing operations so far for 2020-21 SS and have produced 3.16 lakh tonnes of sugar, as compared to 3.37 lakh tonnes produced by 21 sugar mills in 2019-20.
The remaining states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha have collectively produced 23.54 lakh tonnes of sugar till February 28, 2021.
During 2020-21, from 1st October 2020 to 28th February 2021, 502 sugar mills had started operations (as against 453 sugar mills which had operated last year till 29th February, 2020). Also, 98 sugar mills across the country have ended their operations by 28th February 2021. Last year, 70 sugar mills had closed their crushing operations as on 29th February, 2020, said ISMA.