The condition of cooperative sugar factories will improve
Mumbai, November 28, 2019 Thursday
The Maharashtra government formed in the state has the potential to become a favorable situation for co-operative sugar mills in Maharashtra, who are facing a shortage of money. The cooperative sugar factories of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are dominating.
Sugar mills have been refusing to provide credit from cooperative banks in Maharashtra for some time. Due to lack of working capital, it has been difficult for the mills to operate and cannot be crushed, sources in the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said.
The state sugar mills have yet to provide crores of rupees to sugarcane farmers. Maharashtra is the second largest producer of sugarcane and sugar in the country after Uttar Pradesh. Due to global and domestic factors, sugar mills have not been getting sufficient sugar prices for the last few years due to which they are running at a loss.
India's sugar exports have been severely impacted by falling sugar prices in the global market. Heavy rains this year have caused major damage to other crops including sugarcane in areas of Kolhapur, Sangli, Pune and Satara.
This year sugarcane acreage has decreased by more than 4% to 5 hectares compared to last year's 3.5 lakh hectares. In addition, sugar production in the state, which stood at one million tonnes last season, is expected to remain at 8 lakh tonnes, down 4% in the last 2-3 months.
This year, the state assembly elections and the time taken by the government to form is crushing. Last year 5 mills in Maharashtra started breeding sugarcane just before November 1, sources in Isma said.
With the NCP being the constituent party in the new government, the state's sugar industry is hoping to improve the situation.
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