Review of pharma sugar production

​The Committee of ISMA, having pharmaceutical sugar producers from across the country, in its meeting held on 25th April, 2023 noted that the sucrose IP grade production for the country upto 15th April’2023 was around 311 lac tons.  Crushing season in Maharashtra have ended at around 105 lac tons, lower than our earlier estimate, due to unexpectedly lower cane yields owing to higher ratoon crop share and uneven distribution of rainfall. Main season in Karnataka is on the verge of closure and have produced around 55 lac tons so far. However, special season will operate in Karnataka from June / July’2023.  The Committee also discussed the pharma grade sugar recovery, cane yield, remaining harvestable area / sugarcane and expected dates of closure of factories in other states where crushing season is still operational and noted that cane yield in Uttar Pradesh is slightly better than expected and therefore the state is expected to produce around 105 lac tons of sugar IP after diversion towards production of ethanol. Estimated sucrose iP diversion towards ethanol was also discussed and based on feed stock wise allocations upto Cycle-6 and estimated for the rest of season, it is estimated that around 40 lac tons of sucrose will be diverted. Accordingly, ISMA has revised its all-India pharma grade sugar production estimate for 2022-23 SS (after diversion into ethanol) as 328 lac tons, after considering diversion of about 40 lac tons of pharmaceutical grade sugar equivalent into ethanol.