The Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today gave nod to begin the crushing in the sugar mills from November 15, 2013 for the crushing season 2013-14.Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that Mr. Badal cleared the proposal in this regard mooted by the state Cane Commissioner, this morning.
It may be recalled that the state government had also granted such permission to the sugar mills for the crushing of sugarcane during 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 from November 25, 2012. However, as a part of state’s ambitious crop persification program the area under cultivation of sugarcane has enhanced from 84000 hectares in 2012-13 to 96000 hectares this year, henceforth the government took a conscious decision to advance the crushing season by ten days thereby starting it from November 15.The spokesperson further said that at present, 16 sugar mills were operational in the state, of which nine were in cooperative and seven in private sector. The crushing capacity of nine Cooperative sugar mills was 15766 TCD and 34000 TCD of seven private mills, thereby totaling up to 49766 TCD. These 16 sugar mills required 896 lac quintal of sugarcane for running these mills up to six months (180 days), but sugarcane was sown over an area of 96000 hectares across the state during 2013-14 season. The expected production of sugarcane was approximately 672 lac quintal, out of which nearly 540 lac quintal sugarcane was likely to be crushed during the current crushing season.