Crushing plunges 11% in state despite record rise in sugarcane production
UP’s cane crushing plunged 11% to 981.68 lakh tonnes in 2023-24, despite a record cane production of 2,494.20 lakh tonnes, a 4% increase from 2022-23. Cane productivity rose to 84.1 tonnes per hectare, and acreage increased to 29.66 lakh hectares. However, sugar production declined to 104.13 lakh tonnes, down from 120.5 lakh tonnes in 2017-18. Industry sources attribute this to diversion of cane to local jaggery units, leading to under-utilization of sugar mills’ capacities, which dropped to 82.1% in 2023-24.
Lucknow: UP recorded an 11% plunge in the quantum of cane crushing in 2023-24, in a clear indication of heavy diversion of sugarcane to local jaggery units.
According to the data of the cane development department, cane crushing touched a low of 981.68 lakh tonnes in the recently concluded crushing season. This was the lowest cane crushing recorded in the past seven years, despite the state govt hiking the state advisory price (SAP) by Rs 20 per quintal earlier this year and getting a maximum of 121 mills operated.
In 2017-18, 1,111.9 lakh tonnes of cane was crushed. This was despite an ever-increasing cane production. In fact, in 2023-24, the cane production in the state touched an all-time high of 2,494.20 lakh tonnes, a 4% increase from 2022-23 when 2,394.62 lakh tonnes of cane was produced in the state. The cane productivity, too, rose from 79.19 tonnes per hectare in 2017-18 to 84.1 lakh tonnes per hectare in 2023-24. So was the case with cane acreage, which increased from 22.99 lakh hectares in 2017-18 to 29.66 lakh hectares in 2023-24.
Industry sources said that the situation could potentially lead to gross under-utilisation of cane crushing capacities of mills in the state. Sources said that the industry has been repeatedly approaching the state govt to check the diversion. “This, however, has been met with little success,” said sources in the sugar industry. Industry data show that the capacity utilisation of sugar mills dropped from 85.39% in 2022-23 to 82.1% in 2023-24.
Officials said that the situation was being watched closely amid state govt plans to open new mills and increase the cane crushing capacities of the existing ones. The less arrival of cane at the mills also diluted state govt measures to increase the SAP leading to higher cane price payment, experts said. “The cane instead got diverted to local jaggery units which operate in large numbers in the cane belt,” officials said. Farmers, experts said, often choose to divert the cane to the jaggeries to get paid relatively quickly in comparison to the sugar mills.
Data further show that the sugar production in the state too has been on a decline, from 120.5 lakh tonnes in 2017-18 to 104.13 lakh tonnes in 2023-24. It plunged marginally, from 104.82 lakh tonnes in 2022-23 to 104.13 lakh tonnes in 2023-24, essentially because of a high sugar recovery. As a matter of fact, UP has been the biggest producer of sugar in the country, even surpassing Maharashtra where sugar recovery has been higher.
