The Uttar Pradesh government said that sugar mills across the state would stop crushing only after all the standing cane crop was crushed by them.
Only 15 percent of sugarcane allotted to the sugar mills is left for crushing.
Cane Commissioner Sanjay Bhoosreddy said in Lucknow on Sunday that the state government decided to provide relief to the cane growers in view of the hardships faced by them due to lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
He said that cane crushing operation of sugar mills would be closed only if it was certified that the entire sugarcane allotted to mills under sugarcane reservation order had been exhausted.
During the 2019-20 cane crushing season, 119 sugar mills were operational and 18 mills have closed down. During the season, sugar mills have so far crushed over 93 crore metric tons of sugarcane, producing 1.054 crore metric tons of sugar.
In the corresponding period in the 2018-19 cane crushing season, the mills had crushed 90 crore MT of sugarcane, producing a little over I crore MT of sugar.