The Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) in its latest report has said India's sugar production fell 20% to 258.01 lakh tonne in October-April of current marketing year 2019-20 (October-September) as compared to 321.71 lakh tonne in the corresponding period (October-April) of 2018-19 marketing year. The fall was due to lower cane output, while sales plummeted during the last two months because of the lockdown. Sugar sales in March and April declined by 10 lakh tonne because of the imposition of nationwide lockdown to control the coronavirus disease.
Sugar mills across the country have produced 258.01 lakh tonne of sugar between October 1, 2019 and April 30, 2020. This is about 63.70 lakh tonne less than 321.71 lakh tonne produced at the same time last year. At present, 90 sugar mills are operating. ISMA has pegged the country's sugar production to fall at 260 lakh tonne in 2019-20 marketing year (October-September) from around 330 lakh tonne in the previous year.
According to the data, sugar production in Uttar Pradesh stood at 116.52 lakh tonne during the first seven months of the 2019-20 marketing year as against 112.8 lakh tonne in the year-ago period. Out of 119 mills which operated this year, 44 mills have ended their crushing operations while 75 mills are still running. In Maharashtra, sugar production till April stood at 60.67 lakh tonne, compared with 107.15 lakh tonne in the corresponding period of the previous year. All the operating sugar mills in Karnataka have closed their crushing operations. The production stood at 33.82 lakh tonne in the period under review (October -April) as against 43.25 lakh tonne in the year-ago period.
On domestic sales, ISMA said mills sold 10 lakh tonne more sugar till February of the 2019-20 marketing year. Due to lockdown, the sugar sale in March and April, 2020, was lower than what was sold last year, by about 10 lakh tonne, bringing us back to same levels as last year.