PUNE: After almost three months since the crushing season started in Maharashtra, a total of 390.82 lakh Metric Tonne (MT) sugarcane has been crushed while 423.42 lakh quintals of sugar is produced in the State.

Twelve sugar mills from Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and Pune districts are closed as the crushing has been completed in these mills.

“At present, a total of 131 mills are in operation, while 12 out of them have completed their crushing. Eight mills are in Aurangabad, three in Ahmednagar and one in Pune district. A total of 143 licences have been issued while nine of them are still pending,” said an official from the State Sugar Commissionerate.

The crushing season in the State begins from November 22 and as per the data of Sugar Commissionerate, a total of 580 lakh MT of sugarcane will be crushed for the season 2019-2020 and the estimated sugar production for 2019-2020 is 57-58 lakh MT. As per Commissionerate, most of the mills of Marathawada and Ahmednagar will complete the scrushing while sugar mills in Kolhapur and Pune likely to finish their crushing by March 15.