Despite a drop in sugarcane crushing, the Chodavaram Cooperative Sugar Factory is expecting good revenues this year on the back of increase in prices of sugar, molasses and bagasse.
The cooperative sugar mill crushed 350,000 tonne of sugarcane this season, which ended on March 21, as against about 500,000 tonne last season. “We had already reduced our crushing target to 400,000 tonne during this season due to low yield, but only 350,000 tonne of sugarcane arrived at the factory,” GV Ramaiah, managing director, Chodavaram sugar factory, said.
About 60 per cent of the sugarcane crop is under rainfed in the Chodavaram region. However, this year due to lack of rains the yields declined drastically, he said. Normally, in rainfed areas sugarcane yield is around 20 tonne an acre, but this year it fell to 13-15 tonne per acre.
Another reason which led to the decline in crushing was farmers shifted more sugarcane for jaggery production, which was giving higher margins, he added.
He said the mill would see good revenues as the sugar prices were ruling at about Rs 2,000 per quintal as against Rs 1,350 per quintal last season. On the other hand molasses are fetching Rs 5,800 a tonne as compared with Rs 3,000 per tonne last year. “Last season, we produced 19,000 tonne molasses but sold at a lower rate whereas this year our production is only 14,000 tonne but the prices are at Rs 5,800 a tonne,” he said.
The mill produced 19,000 tonne bagasse and sold at Rs 400 per tonne last season while this season though the production declined to 10,000 tonne, prices are ruling at Rs 1,100 per tonne.
The factory also has a co-generation facility. During last season, it generated 17 million units, where as this year, power production dropped to 13 million units due to low crushing.
