Sugarcane plant is considered to be a genus from India and the art of sugar making is prevalent in the country since ancient days.
There is mention of sugaring the/U/7arai Veda, KuutWya’s Arthashastra, writing of Magasthenes, war memoirs of Alexander, the Great and the Chinese Encyclopedia of the 16th century. While the indigenous industry was in the form of khandsari. India is presently the leading producer of sugar in the world.
The sugar industry is the third largest industry in terms of its contribution to the net value added by manufacture and provides employment to about 3.6 lakh workers (besides sustaining 25 million sugarcane cultivators). It is also an important source of excise duty for the it’s by-products like molas biogases etc support many ancillary industries.
Historical Development
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The beginning of the modern sugar Indus was made during the Colonial period by the Dutch businessman in North Bihar in about 1840 which was a failure. However, the successful attempts well made by the British entrepreneurs in the early partol the 20th century when vacuum pan mills were startel at Pursa, Pratabpur, Barachakia and Marhowrah the north-eastern Uttar Pradesh and the adjoining Bihar. The industry got up boost up in 1931 with the imposition of tariff duty on the import of sugar by the Government.
As a result the number of sugar mill increased from 32 in I93l to 137 in 1937 and production from 1.6 lakh tons to 10 lakh tone bringing down the quantity of import considerably During 1950-5I there were 139 sugar factories in the country with total production of 11.34 lakh tons sugar.
The industry has made rapid progress during the Planning Era as a result of which the number of sugar mills has increased to 450 and the production to 192 lakh tons in 2000-01 (189.1 lakh tons in 2002-03). Table 23.IV presents trends in the growth of sugar factories and production in India. There has been fluctuation in the output of the sugar in the country. While year’s 1990-91 (120.47 lakh tons), 1991-92 (132.77 It), 1996-97 (153.03 It) and 2000-01 (192.4 It) have been characterised by good production others like 1992-93 (105.62 It), 1993-94 (98 It), 1997-98 (131.6 It) and 2002-03 (189.1 It) years are marked by shortfall in sugar output. This is due to decline in sugarcane area and non-remunerative price to farmers. 23.2.3. Distribution sugar industry uses sugarcane as its raw material. It is a heavy and weight-losing material.