INDIA: Maha confirms cut in sugar production estimate
Published: 01/27/2012, 8:53:05 AM
Commissioner of Sugar, Maharashtra, Vijay Singhal, said the Maharashtra government has officially revised downward the sugar production estimate of the state by 500,000 metric tonnes from 9.3 million tonnes to 8.8 million tonnes, according to the Economic Times of India newspaper.
"Earlier, we had estimated that the sugarcane production would be 82.5 million tonnes while the sugar production 9.3 million tonnes. We held a series of meeting with our officials and a detailed assessment of the field level situation and revised our estimate. We now expect the sugar cane production to be 77.5 million tonnes and the sugar production to be 8.8 million tonnes," said Singhal.
ET had earlier reported about the state's sugar production likely to fall to 8.8 million tonnes to 8.9 million tonnes. The state has reported fall in yields mainly in Western Maharashtra, the sugar bowl of the state that ranks top in sugar production in the country.
"Parts of Ahmednagar, Pune, Solapur and some parts of Sangli and Satara have reported fall in yield by about 8% to 10%," said Singhal.
Though the yield of sugar cane has declined, there has been a gain in the sugar recovery by about 0.3% to 0.4%. Till January 22, the state had crushed 38 million tonnes of sugarcane and produced 41.4 million quintal sugar at a recovery of 10.9%. This current sugar production is higher by 6.7 million quintals as compared to the sugar production of comparable period of the previous year.
As the crushing is good, the state is expecting the season to get over early by more than a moth as compared to the last year. "The crushing is going really good this year. We expect the season to get over maximum by April end," said Singhal.