With an increase in the sugarcane area, sugar mills in the state expect the crushing season to be longer this year as compared to the previous year. They expect the crushing season will last for 100 days against last year’s 65-80 days. Also, mills expect the actual utilisation of their cane crushing capacity to be higher in the ongoing season.
The total area under sugarcane cultivation in Punjab is 84,000 hectares this year while last year it was 60,000 hectares. According to senior officials in the Punjab government, sugar output in Punjab is likely to touch 27.50 lakh quintals in the current crushing season, compared to 18 lakh quintals during the corresponding period last year. The increase in output is mainly because of the increase in area coupled with expectations of better recovery (of sugar) as compared to last year.
Also, according to the data, sugar mills in Punjab crushed about 9.56 lakh quintal of sugarcane upto November 30, against 9.29 lakh quintal last year.
Earlier, Cane Commissioner M S Sandhu told Business Standard, “We are expecting sugar output would touch 27.50 lakh quintal this crushing season as compared to 18 lakh quintals last season. The sugar mills in the state is likely to crush 320 lakh quintal of sugarcane this season and the recovery would be 9 per cent.” While last year 15 sugar mills in the state crushed 210 lakh quintals of sugarcane and the recovery rate was 8.59 per cent.
Further, last year the output in the state touched a historic low of 18 lakh quintals owing to shortage in cane crop and lower crushing. According to the state government data, the output is lowest in the state’s history after 1980-81. The data states in 1980-81, the output in the state was 5.19 lakh quintals and thereafter it kept on increasing.
Agriculturists are of the view, with farmers shifting their preference towards wheat and paddy, the consistent fall in area under cane cultivation has badly affected the sugarcane production in the state, thus reducing the output.
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Also, last year, due to shortage of cane, all the nine co-operative sugar mills in the state having crushing capacity of 15,766 TCD have been affected. Even the picture of the private sugar mills was not very rosy. In order to keep themselves running, the seven mills in private sector had to shell out anywhere between from Rs 240-270 per quintal to the growers. The installed capacity of all the seven sugar mills in private sector is 31,000 TCD (tonnes crushed per day).
The Punjab Government fixed the State Assured Price (SAP) of advanced, medium and late variety of sugarcane at Rs 200, Rs 195 and Rs 190 per quintal for the crushing season of 2010-11. It may be recalled the state government had fixed the SAP of advanced, medium and late variety of sugarcane at Rs 180, Rs 175 and Rs 170 per quintal for the crushing season of 2009-10.