Sugar mills in the country produced 247.68 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar till end of last month, nearly 16 lt more than they produced in the corresponding period last year, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said on Wednesday.

The total sugar production in the same period last year was 231.77 lt.

As many as 266 mills are in operation as against 457 last year and mills in Maharashtra and Karnataka are on the verge of completing crushing, it said.

However, ISMA said a high monthly sale quota of 24.5 lt, announced by the government on Tuesday has had a negative impact on sugar prices, which went down by ₹100 a quintal.

Also read:Sweet news: Sugar mills to get ₹10,540-cr soft loans

Only last week, the government announced soft loans worth ₹10,000 crore to help improve the liquidity of sugar mills, which in turn is expected to reduce sugar cane arrears due to farmers. As on February 22, the total sugarcane arrears stood at ₹20,159 crore, according to the official estimates.

Maharashtra, where 193 mills were in operation, produced 92.1 lt of sugar as compared to 84.54 lt produced in the same period last year. Twenty three Maharashtra mills have already closed crushing operations.

In UP where 117 sugar mills that are in operation, produced 73.20 lt till February 28 as compared with 73.61 lt produced by the similar number of mills on the corresponding date of last year.

The total production of sugar in Karnataka till end of last month was 41.69 lt with 35 mills still crushing, while 32 mills closed operations. The production in Karnataka in the same period last year was 33.92 lt.

Mills in Gujarat produced 8.80 lt of sugar till February end, which is a little more than 8.23 lt produced same period last year.

Twenty five mills in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have produced 5.7 lt which very similar to what was produced last year. While sugar production from Bihar and Tamil Nadu was 5.75 lt and 4.7 lt respectively, the combined production from other sugar-producing states was 15.4 lt.

ISMA said sugar mills have offered to supply a record 51 crore litres of ethanol in the current season of which 12 crore litres would be produced from B heavy molasses and sugarcane juice. This is expected to bring down sugar production by 5 lt in the year which is to witness a glut in sugar production.

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