DMPQ: Sugar mills are facing some serious problems in the recent past. List down the       reason for problems attached with sugar mills. Why  performance of mills in peninsular India is better than that of north India?

• Obsolete machinery
• Low productivity/ hectare
• Low crushing season
• Policies issues:
• Highly political sensitive commodity
• Delinking of sugarcane and sugar prices
• State advisory prices are very high
• Restriction on the use of bagasse and molasses. Energy generation cannot be sell out to others.
• Low per capita consumption of sugars.
• High input cost involved in sugarcane crop.
• Small and uneconomic size of mill.
• Prolonged frost in north destroy the crop

Reason for better performance:

• Tropical climate: High sucrose content
• High yield/ hectare
• Long crushing season
• Cooperative are better managed
• Proximity to the ports and size of mill