Sugar output to decline to 26 million tonnes in 2015-16

New Delhi: Government on Friday pegged the country's total sugar output at around 26 million tonnes for the current marketing year, over 2 million tonnes lower than last year, on likely shortfall in Maharashtra and Karnataka because of poor monsoon.

This is almost similar to the projection made by the state governments but much lower than industry body ISMA's estimate of 27 million tonnes for this year.

The country had produced 28.1 million tonnes of sugar in the 2014-15 marketing year (October-September). India is the world's second biggest sugar producer.

"The production of sugar is expected to be roughly around 26 million tonnes in the 2015-16 marketing year, which would be sufficient to meet the domestic demand," a senior Food Ministry official told PTI after the meeting of the state cane commissioners here today.

The sugar production is expected to drop by over two million tonnes mainly due to likely fall in the output in Maharashtra and Karnataka, where cane production has come down due to poor monsoon, the official said.

Maharashtra, the country's leading sugar producing state, has projected sugar output to decline to 8.6 million tonnes in the 2015-16 marketing year, compared with 10.51 million tonnes in the last year.

The likely fall in sugar output in the state is mainly due to significant drop in sugarcane output to 83.6 million tonnes in 2015-16 from 102.2 million tonnes last year due to poor rains, a senior Maharashtra government official said.

Similarly in Karnataka, sugar output is estimated to decline to 4 million tonnes in 2015-16 marketing year from 5 million tonnes last year.

Sugarcane cultivation in both Maharashtra and Karnataka is largely rainfed unlike Uttar Pradesh where it is irrigated.

However in Uttar Pradesh, the country's second biggest sugar producing state, sugar production is estimated to be at last year's level at 7.2 million tonnes in 2015-16.

According to sources, the UP government had initially informed the Centre that sugar output might exceed by 0.5 million tonnes this year, but in today's meeting the state government submitted the sugar output for 2015-16 to be at last year's level of 7.2 million tonnes.

"In the meeting, the UP government has been asked to rework their estimate keeping in view of possible high cane production in view of cane cultivation being irrigated unlike other states and use of improved cane varieties by farmers for last few years," the sources added.

As per the Agriculture Ministry's first estimate, sugarcane production is estimated to decline to 341.43 million tonnes in 2015-16 crop year (July-June), as against 359.3 million tonnes in the last year.