This sugar season, 190 sugar mills including 95 private and 95 cooperative, have crushed 1,004.71 lakh tonnes of sugarcane, which is the highest ever in the history of Maharashtra State, surpassing the about 954 lakh tonnes cane crushed in the complete 2017-18 season. Together, mills in the State have produced 1,053.44 lakh quintal of sugar; 28 sugar mills still continue operations.

Kolhapur and Pune regions dominate the sugar chart in the State. These two regions, considered as the sugar bowl of the State, have crushed 46 per cent sugarcane to produce 50 per cent of the total sugar produced in Maharashtra. Drought-prone regions of Aurangabad, Nanded, Amravati and Nagpur have produced 197 lakh quintal sugar, which is 19 per cent of the total State sugar production. A total of 53 mills had started crushing operations in these drought-prone regions.

Why sugarcane is sweet and grapes sour for Maharashtra farmers

Uncertain about markets

Among the mills that are still operational, 10 are in Ahmednagar region and 11 in the Aurangabad region.

Millers in the State are uncertain about the markets available for the massive sugar stocks. According to the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar factories Limited, sugar mills in the State are selling sugar below minimum selling price (MSP) of ₹3,100 per quintal because of the paucity of funds.

Maharashtra mills continue to sell sugar stock below MSP

Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Raosaheb Danve, recently stated that in order to evacuate the surplus stock of sugar, the government has allocated mill-wise export quota of 60 lakh tonnes for export during the current sugar season. Besides, the government is encouraging sugar mills to produce ethanol from sugarcane juice, sugar, sugar syrup and B-Hy molasses to divert excess sugar. The government has also fixed the remunerative price of ethanol from various feedstock to encourage sugar mills to divert excess sugar.

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