Sugar Industry in India 2014

The report highlights the analysis of the drivers and explains the factors for growth of the industry. Growing Population and Rise in Income, High Demand from Food and Beverage Industry, Growing Pharmaceutical Market, are the key drivers of this market. There is a huge untapped market which gives the industry more opportunities to expand. There is also a huge opportunity from by-products, and the sugar industry is considered as the chief source of raw material for ethanol production in India. To meet the rising demand of ethanol, sugar plants receive government aid which is facilitating ethanol production, in turn benefiting the overall sugar industry.

There are various challenges too that the sugar industry faces, oversupply situation and rise in sugarcane prices, impact of cyclicality and pricing are the major challenges faced by the sugar industry. Rise in sugarcane prices will bring down the profitability of sugar mills. Due to the sugar pricing challenge, it is difficult for the sugar mills to recover their production costs which lead to frequent losses
Government is likely to decontrol sugar sector to facilitate growth in the domestic sugar industry, also the sugar industry has been lobbying hard for decontrolling the sugar sector. The chief organizations, such as ISMA and NFCSF are looking for partial decontrol of the sector, allowing selling the entire stock of sugar in the open market.

Companies can tie up with the confectionary manufacturing and pharmaceutical giants, holding agreements which will allow them to sell sugar directly to these bulk buyers, resolving the problem of identification of the bulk buyers. Arranging workshops for providing formal training and organizing development programmes for sugarcane farmers and associated working class will increase the productivity.