The sugar milling business is tightly controlled by the govt - for the benefit of the mill owners. A huge lot of them, especially in MH, are politicians, many others are mafia wearing a veil.
This is a personal opinion, where I think we should be discouraging sugar consumption in our country. We are already the diabetic country of the world, and our diets have an overdose of sugar. Cane farming is a 2-season or more crop, and diverts land for a long time from other, more socially beneficial crops. It also sucks up a huge amount of water.
Cane farming is encouraged by giving very high support prices. The centrally announced support prices are often jacked up by states in order to provide bigger feed stock to the mills. The mills are usually erratic in paying the farmers, and they are subsidized by grants, no- or low-interest loans.
Sugar mills fudge their books to show losses The Materials Balance in this industry is cane+water = cane juice+bagasse. Mills usually report a higher percentage of bagasse which is shown as consumed in-house as fuel for boilers, which makes it easy to fudge. The lower yield of cane juice starts a chain of activities, showing lower output of sugar, with the unaccounted part getting sold in the cash/black market.
