For the year 2019-20 India's sugar production is likely to fall by 19%. The state's sugar commissioner said first hit by drought and then floods, Maharashtra, the second largest sugar producer in the country, is expected to witness the biggest fall of 45%. But despite these disasters, India will still end up with a lot of closing stock after meeting domestic and export requirements, said industry body Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).
ISMA expects sugar production to be around 268.5 lakh tonnes, in its first estimate for the 2019-20 sugar season, without considering the impact of sugar reduction due to diversion of heavy molasses/sugarcane juice to ethanol. ISMA also fears sugar production to further decline to around 260 lakh tonnes by considering the diversion to ethanol.
Maharashtra, the second largest sugar producer in the will play a crucial role in determining the country's total sugar production for the 2019-20 season.
Shekhar Gaikwad, sugar commissioner, Maharashtra said that “After taking into account the impact of floods in the state, we now expect that a total of 518 lakh tonnes of sugarcane to become available for crushing, while the total sugar production of Maharashtra will be 58 lakh tonnes against 107 lakh tonnes produced in the previous year". He also fears that 36 sugar mills from the state won’t be operational this year due to non-availability of sugarcane.
One of the sugar trader Praful Vithlani thinks that Maharashtra's sugar production will touch around 63 lakh tonnes as the yields will be higher due to returning monsoon rainfall in some parts of the state. ISMA has pegged Maharashtra's 2019-20 sugar production which is at a decline of 40% and it was around 62 lakh tonnes.
331.61 lakh tonnes was the annual India’s total sugar production during 2018-19. ISMA in a release said that “Considering the opening balance of 107 lakh tonnes as on October 1, 2018, and sugar and exports of around 38 lakh tonnes and sugar sales of 255 lakh tonnes, the closing balance as on September 30, 2019, is estimated to be 145.81 lakh tonnes".
ISMA informed that Against the new Maximum Admissible Export Quantity (MAEQ) of 60 lakh tonnes, many sugar companies have finalized export contracts for export of about 7 - 8 lakh tonnes of sugar.
One of the Sugar exporter Praful Vithlani confirmed that there has been good demand for Indian sugar from the Asian markets. He said that "Most of the export contracts have been signed with Iran from where we have good demand". The Middle-East countries and Bangladesh are the others which are interested in Indian sugar.
