India's Chinese production current session 2024-25 has reduced 16.13 percent to 2.37 million tonnes so far, making challenges for government policies prepared based on high early estimates. Cooperative institution NFCSF gave this information on Sunday.
The National Cooperative Chinese Factory Federation (NFCSF) has expressed concern over 'ambiguity' in Chinese production figures, as 2024–25 sugarcane crushing session (October-September) is about to end with much lower production from the estimated production initially. The industry body said in a statement that the Chinese production estimates have been repeatedly revised and brought down since the session started, causing challenges for government policies, which were prepared based on an initial estimate of 3.33 million tonnes.
The NFCSF said, “A section of the industry presented an estimate of 3.33 million tonnes of sugar production to the central government. Based on that, the central government started making its policies. ” The central government had allowed exports of 1 million tonnes of sugar in January 2025 based on initial production estimates, but now due to low actual production figures, there is an imbalance in supply-mang.
According to NFCSF data, the production in India's largest Chinese producing state of Maharashtra declined to 78.6 lakh tonnes till March 15, compared to a million tonnes a year ago. Production in Uttar Pradesh, the second largest producing state of the country, declined from 88.5 lakh tonnes to 80.9 lakh tonnes, while in the same period, the production of Karnataka declined from 49.5 lakh tonnes to 39.1 lakh tonnes.
NFCSF President Harshvardhan Patil said that the crushing session in most states will end by the end of March, while the mills of Uttar Pradesh will run by mid -April. Patil expressed concern over the crushing period, especially in Maharashtra, where the crushing session lasted for only 83 days while the economically viable period is 140–150 days.
(With agency input)
First Published – March 16, 2025 | 6:48 PM IST
