Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday gave nod to begin crushing in sugar mills from November 15 for the crushing season 2013-14.
Badal cleared the proposal in this regard mooted by the state Cane Commissioner on Thursday morning, said the spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office.
It may be recalled that the state government had also granted such permission to the sugar mills for crushing of sugarcane during 2010-11, 2011-12, and 2012-13 from November 25, 2012.
However, as a part of state’s ambitious crop diversification program, the area under cultivation of sugarcane has enhanced from 84,000 hectares in 2012-13 to 96,000 hectares this year, henceforth the government took a conscious decision to advance the crushing season by 10 days thereby starting it from November 15.
The spokesperson further said that at present, 16 sugar mills were operational in the State, of which nine were in cooperative and seven in private sector.
The crushing capacity of nine cooperative sugar mills was 15766 tonnes crushed per day (TCD) and 34,000 TCD of seven private mills, thereby totaling up to 49766 TCD.
These 16 sugar mills required 896 lakh quintal of sugarcane for running these mills up to six months (180 days), but sugarcane was sown over an area of 96,000 hectares across the state during 2013-14 season.
The expected production of sugarcane was approximately 672 lakh quintal, out of which nearly 540 lakh quintal sugarcane was likely to be crushed during the current crushing season.