Sugarcane Crushing in Full Swing: AISTA

New Delhi, Nov 28 (PTI) The sugarcane crushing operation in the 2023-24 season is in full swing post-Diwali across the country, trade body AISTA said on Tuesday.

Sugar season runs from October to September.

"The crushing operation is in full swing across the country now. All sugar factories have started the crushing," All India Sugar Trade Association (AISTA) chairman Praful Vithalani told PTI.

Some mills had begun the crushing operation during mid-October. However, it picked up post-Diwali, he said.

There are about more than 700 installed sugar factories in the country with crushing capacity of about 340 lakh tonnes of sugar, as per the official data.

The country's total sugarcane production is estimated to be higher at 434.79 million tonnes in the 2023-24 crop year (July-June), as against 422.25 million tonnes in the previous year, as per the first estimate released by the agriculture ministry.

There was an opening stock of sugar at 5.7 million tonnes as of October 1 in view of slight decline in the domestic production in the 2022-23 season owing to bad weather in some producing states.

Domestic annual consumption is estimated to be about 29 million tonnes.