International trading houses expect India to export at least 85 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar during the current season to September, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) has said.

“Trade reports show that over 72lt of sugar export have been contracted so far, out of which physical exports by the end of March 2022 are expected to be around 56 - 57 lt,” ISMA said in a statement.

ISMA, in the statement issued on Monday, said during the current season, 518 sugar mills started their crushing operations against 505 mills that operated last year. They have produced 309.87 lt of sugar by March 31 against 278.71 lt produced during the year-ago period. The production is higher by 31.16 lt.

About 152 mills have stopped crushing and 366 sugar mills in the country are continuing their crushing operations.

Maharashtra leads

In Maharashtra, sugar production till March 31, 2022, was 118.81 lt with 100.47 lt in the year-ago period. In the current season,  30 mills have closed their crushing operations in the State, most of them in the Kolhapur region and a few in the Solapur region. The remaining 167 sugar mills are still operating. Mills have so far crushed about 1,143 lt of sugarcane, which is a record high, surpassing about 1,014 lt cane crushed during the whole of 2020-21 season.

In Uttar Pradesh, 120 sugar mills are in operation and have produced 87.50 lt of sugar till March 31, 2022. Out of 120 sugar mills, 32 sugar mills have stopped crushing operations, most of them located in Eastern UP.  A similar number of mills operated last year in the State and had produced 93.71 lt as of March 31, 2021. About 39 mills had closed their crushing operations on the corresponding date last year.

Record in Karnataka

In the case of Karnataka, till March 31 about 72 sugar mills produced 57.65 lt of sugar.  Similar to Maharashtra, this is by far a record high sugar production.  In Gujarat, 15 mills are currently in operation and have produced 10 lt of sugar. In Tamil Nadu, 28 sugar mills commenced their crushing operations for 2021-22 and have produced 6.87 lt of sugar compared with 5.08 lt produced by 26 sugar mills in 2020-21.

The remaining States of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha have collectively produced 29.04 lt of sugar.

Bihar and Rajasthan have already ended their crushing operations for the current campaign.

Ethanol status

Against the total LOI quantity of 416.33 crore litres, 131.69 crore litres of ethanol have been supplied as of March 27, 2022. The contracted quantity as of date is 402.66 crore litres as against LOIs of about 416 crore litres issued by OMCs. The country on average has achieved a blending percentage of 9.60 per cent till the end of March since December 2021, according to the ISMA.