The sugarcane crushing operations for 2025-26 season in India has gained momentum. As on 30th November, 2025, 486 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of sugarcane has been crushed (as against last year’s 334 LMT). While 41.35 LMT of new sugar has been produced (as against last year’s 27.60 LMT). The average sugar recovery attained till end-November is 8.51% as against 8.27% recorded on the corresponding date last year, according to the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited (NFCSF) data.
The normal monsoon and retreating rains have concluded, and sugarcane cutting operations are currently in full swing, except for some pockets in Maharashtra and Karnataka where farmers’ agitations (“Rasta Roko”) are underway.
As per NFCSF, at this stage, the gross sugar production at the end of the current season (September 2026) is anticipated to be 350 LMT, going by Cycle-1, ethanol allocation, around 35 LMT of sugar is expected to be diverted for ethanol production, thus recording net sugar production of 315 LMT., in which major contributors would be: Maharashtra-110 LMT, Uttar Pradesh-105 LMT, Karnataka-55 LMT, and Gujarat-8 LMT.
Out of this, the expected domestic consumption is 290 LMT, and computing the opening stock of 50 LMT, it will leave a balance of approximately 75 LMT in sugar mills’ godowns. Blocking huge funds & mounting interest burden. Therefore, NCSF has requested the Government of India to allow an additional 10 LMT for exports (over and above the already-announced 15 LMT). This move would not only help improve domestic market sentiment by firming domestic sugar prices, but will not adversely impact the current low international sugar prices in view of small trenches of Indian sugar entering global market.
The entire sugar sector continues to face ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the long-pending revision of the Minimum Selling Price (MSP) of sugar. There has been no revision in the last six years, despite significant increases in conversion costs, financial overheads, interest burden, holding costs, and normative returns to mills, NFCSF stated in a release.
“There is an urgent need to revise the current MSP to Rs. 41 per kg. It may be noted that revenue share given to farmers in major sugarcane-producing countries such as Brazil and Thailand is around 60–65%, without any minimum guarantee (FRP, whereas in India, it works out to 75-80% even considering sugar MSP Rs. 41 per kg,” said Mr. Harshvardhan Patil, President, NFCSF.
Another angle to look at the issue is based on Rangarajan Committee recommendation; State Govt. of Maharashtra and Karnataka have passed the legislation that the sugar mills to share the upside revenue with the farmers. Thus, about 75% of upside will go to the famers and 25% will remain with the sugar factories. This will directly benefit 5 crore small and marginal sugarcane farmers,” Harshvardhan Patil further added.
“In India there are 513 distilleries having combined distillation capacity of 1953 crore litres/year. Major share has been of 281 molasses based distilleries with installed capacity of 838 crores ltrs./ year, 210 grain based distilleries having installed capacity of 980 crore ltrs / year and another 22 dual feed based distilleries having installed capacity of 135 cores Ltr/year. In contrast to this hugely invested distillation capacity in place, the ethanol allocation for sugar sector has been merely 288.60 crore litres while balance 759.80 crore litres has gone to grain based distilleries. This gross anomaly in allocation of Cycle 1 needs to be not only rectified but the long awaited upward revision in Sugar based ethanol prices is the need of the hour, for which we at, NCSF, are continuously following up with the concerned authorities”, said Prakash Naiknavare, Managing Director of NFCSF.
