Highest number of sugar mills, record crushing capacity mark cane season in Maharashtra

Speaking to reporters in Pune on Thursday, state sugar commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said that 210 mills crushed cane this season. “This was the highest such number in the last 100 years,” he said. In the last season, 173 mills were engaged in crushing cane.

He also said the per-day cane-crushing capacity touched a record high of 8.85 lakh tonnes, with the season being reduced to 121 days from 173 days last time. At the end of the season, the mills crushed 1,052.88 lakh tonnes of cane and produced 105.31 lakh tonnes of sugar. This, however, was a steep drop from the projection that the state was to produce 137 lakh tonnes in the season.

Asked about the drop, Gaikwad said, “Excessive rains post September and a delayed start to the monsoon took a toll on per-hectare production. The production drop is reported to be around 40 per cent per hectare,” he said.

Along with production drop, the ratio of sugar produced to cane crushed also fell. The average recovery, factoring in the diversion for ethanol, would be 11.15 per cent as against the 11.25 per cent that the state normally reports, Gaikwad said, attributing this also to the vagaries of nature.

An important feature of this season was the large-scale diversion of mills towards ethanol, the official said. “Our mills have adopted the Brazil model wherein they divert cane juice directly towards production of ethanol. In the next season, five mills will solely produce ethanol,” he said, adding that 16 lakh tonnes of sugar was subsumed for the production of ethanol in this season.

Gaikwad also said that at the end of the season, mills that were to pay farmers Rs 33,3278 crore (including harvesting and transportation costs) as the government-declared fair and remunerative price (FRP) made payments of Rs 31,861 crore—95.74 per cent. “As many as 101 mills have cleared all their payments… Action was taken against eight mills for failing to pay farmers on time,” the official said.

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Moreover, the mills exported Rs 8,740 crores’ worth of sugar in the international market. “This season was special as the exports were carried out without any government grant or subsidy,” Gaikwad said.