Sugar production in the state may be slightly behind the target with 92 sugar mills mulling to announce premature closure of the present cane crushing season sometime next week.
Sources in Cane Development Department (CDD) claimed that the production of sugar was 748.65 lakh quintal on Thursday while only 25 sugar mills were left running. The other 90 odd mills are not running with their full capacity and might announce closure next week.
In the beginning of crushing season, the CDD had fixed a target of about 840 lakh quintal sugar production which possibly could not be achieved due to low recovery of sugar from cane this year. Currently the average sugar recovery is 8.99 percent which was assessed to be about 9 percent after January.
With mill disbursing payments to the tune of of Rs 15782 crore to cane growers, the payment of cane arrears has been about 70 percent while Rs 6200 crore were still pending. The government has issued strict instructions to pay the arrears within next 14 days.