Mumbai: Maharashtra government has decided to start the sugarcane crushing season 2020-21 from October 15. The decision has been taken in a meeting called by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray with the concerned authorities on Thursday.
Cooperative Minister Balasaheb Patil said, “A meeting was convened to discuss the sugarcane crushing season 2020-21 during which it was decided to start sugar mills from October 15. Last year sugar mills started operations on November 22.”
According to ISMA, Maharashtra’s net cane area has gone up by about 43% in 2020-21 SS, which is mainly due to above normal SW and NE monsoon in 2019, followed by normal rainfall from January to March’ 2020. As against the net cane area of 7.76 lakh ha. in 2019-20 SS, area is expected to increase to 11.12 lakh ha in 2020-21. It is noteworthy that during the current 2019-20 SS around 0.5 lakh ha cane area was completely lost due to floods in July- August 2019.
Sugar production is, therefore, estimated to be around 101.34 lakh tonnes in 2020-21 SS, as against 61.61 lakh tonnes produced in 2019-20 SS, i.e. higher by about 39.73 lakh tonnes.
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