According to a press release from the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), Uttar Pradesh (UP), Maharashtra and Karnataka have witnessed an increase of about 22% over last year till date in their sugar production. However, the release said that though the quantum of cane crushing is higher, early crushing has hurt the recovery, bringing it down to 8.49% till January 15, 2012 in comparison to 8.85% in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Dip in gur manufacturing
Moreover, arrival of gur (jaggery) in UP mandis also declined by about 17% till December 2011 compared to last year, which makes it evident that there has been lesser diversion of cane to local sweetener for manufacturing gur. As aresult, there is more sugarcane available to sugar mills for crushing. UP, for instance, has seen phenomenal growth in sugarcane crushing till January 15, 2012 at 347 lakh tons, as compared to 271 lakh tons of sugarcane crushed up to the same period in the previous year.
According to Subrat Beura, managing director of Alishan International, a small-sized food products manufacturer and exporter in Cuttack, “From the perspective of food processing, it is not welcome news that production of jaggery has decreased. However, given that sugar prices are still on the higher side for most consumers, higher production of the commodity may bring down its price and provide relief to customers.”
Indeed, consumers would be hoping that price of sugar, an essential food commodity for most people, is reduced.
Prasenjit Das |
In what is likely to cheer the agri sector as well as food industry players, there has been a robust growth in sugar production of late. As per industry data, in the current sugar season there has been a production of 104.5 lakh tons of sugar up to January 15, 2012. This is around 17 lakh tons more than the sugar production as compared to the same period in the previous year, registering a strong growth of 19% period-to-period.
