India’s 2023-24 sugar season is expected to open with nearly 60 lakh tonnes of stock of sugar, which is enough to meet the country’s domestic needs for two-and-a-half months. This will be the second consecutive year when the season is starting with stock lower than 100-lakh tonnes.
Jaiprakash Dandegaonkar, president of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Association, in a press statement, said the association has revised its earlier sugar estimates for the season.
As per new estimates, total sugar production is expected to be 334 lakh tonne, 25 lakh tonne less than last season’s production of 359 lakh tonne. “As much as 45 lakh tonnes will be subsumed for production of ethanol,” he said.
Meanwhile, across India, sugarcane crushing has started coming to an end. Prakash Naiknavare, the federation’s managing director, said till date, the country has reported cultivation of 2,653 lakh tonnes of cane. The sugar produced so far is 260 lakh tonne and the average recovery – sugar produced versus cane crushed expressed as a percentage- is 9.78, 0.15 per cent lower than last year’s 9.93 per cent.
However, since the start of the cane crushing season, mills have reported lower than expected per hectare yield and loss in recovery. State mills, which were to produce 137 lakh tonne sugar, are now expected to produce 125 lakh tonnes.
“By deducting annual local consumption of 275 lakh tonnes and taking into account the opening stock of 62 lakh tonne at the beginning of the season — even with the export of 61 lakh tonne — there will be enough sugar left at the end of the current season, which will be able to meet domestic requirement of two-and-a-half to three months,” said Naiknavare.
According to him, these estimated figures will help keep sugar prices stable. The Federation has stated that almost 50 per cent of the mills in the country will close their season by the middle of March.
