Against the usual practice of commencing the sugarcane crushing season at November-end, this year it is likely to begin from mid October. The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to advance the crushing season to blunt the edge of the farmers’ agitation against the two bills for reforms in agriculture marketing passed by Parliament during the brief monsoon session.
UP is the country’s top sugar and cane producer and had logged 1.26 crore MT of sugar output in the 2019-20 crushing season. The quantity was more than 45 per cent of India’s sugar production of 2.72 crore MT. The state’s annual sugarcane economy is pegged at nearly Rs 50,000 crore.
According to preliminary estimates, UP has a bumper cane crop in 2020-21 season spanning 2.29 million hectares.
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, during a meeting with farmers under the aegis of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) at his official residence here, had said the state was sensitive to the interests of the sugarcane farmers and over-all interests of the farmers community. The chief minister had also told the farmers leaders that the government had facilitated highest sugarcane payment to farmers. He had also announced that the western and eastern UP sugar mills would start crushing operations from October 15 and 25 respectively.
The timely start of the crushing would also give the farmers ample time for the successive wheat sowing season for optimising the farm income.
There are 119 operational sugar mills in UP, of which 94 are operated by the private sector players, including Bajaj Hindustan, Balrampur Chini, Dalmia Groups etc.
Meanwhile, a sugar industry official said that the crushing season in UP was expected early compared to last season as there was an estimate of a bumper crop, although he expressed doubts on the October 15 date announced by the chief minister.
“My estimate is that the crushing operations in UP would start by the end of October, which would still be 2-3 weeks early compared to the 2019-20 crushing cycle,” he claimed.
In his interaction with the farmers, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had lauded the contribution of the UP sugar industry in the fight against COVID-19 by augmenting hand sanitiser production for general supply, although 50 per cent sugar mills in other states were closed during the lockdown.
According to a preliminary report of the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the domestic sugar production is estimated at over three crore MT in 2020-21, which will be 12 per cent higher than 2.72 crore MT in 2019-20.
UP is estimated to have sugar output of 1.23 crore MT. Due to higher cane availability and surplus sugar, it is estimated that a higher quantity of cane juice and B-molasses will get diverted for ethanol in UP, Maharashtra and Karnataka.