Chandigarh, Feb. 11 -- The sugar mills in Punjab in the ongoing crushing season are struggling to procure produce in proportion to their capacity. The situation has arisen due to a fall in yield caused by floods in the cane belt. To deal with the shortfall, the management and staff of the private mills are reaching out to the growers to get their share of the sugar cane. Punjab cane commissioner Amrik Singh admitted to the problem and said that while the crushing capacity of the mills has increased substantially, the area under cane cultivation also needs to grow. "At the onset of the season last year, sugarcane was planted over 95,000 hectares (2.35 lakh acres), out of which nearly 40,000 acres suffered damage due to floods and over the rest of the area, the yield fell drastically by nearly 40 to 50 quintals. Under normal circumstances, sugarcane yield is 340 quintals per acre, which has fallen to nearly 300 quintals," cane commissioner Amrik Singh said. Punjab's annual cane production averages 780 lakh quintals, out of which nearly 630 lakh quintals reach the mills for crushing. Out of this, 470 lakh quintals are processed by private mills and the rest by the cooperative sector mills. There are 15 sugar mills in the state - nine in the cooperative sector and six are privately managed. Going by the cane processing percentage, cooperative mills crush 30% of the total produce, and the rest is crushed by the privately owned sugar mills. Nine cooperative mills are at Gurdaspur, Batala, Ajnala, Bhogpur, Nakodar, Nawanshahr, Budewal, Morinda and Fazilka, and private mills are at Khanna, Buttar Seviyan, Kiri Afgana, Mukerian, Dasuya and Phagwara. Cane commissioner added that the crushing capacity of the mills has increased substantially, and to fulfil the need, there is a need to increase the area under cane cultivation. "The fresh transplantation is underway, and we are making efforts to increase the area by 30,000 to 40,000 acres," he added. According to Rana Inder Partap Singh, who runs a sugar mill in Buttar Seviyan, said besides the fall in the yield in the current season, another major problem is harvesting, which has been delayed due to labour shortage. "The state must put mechanised harvesting systems in place, as overdependence on manual labour has been a major gap," he said, adding that Punjab needs a three-year mechanisation plan since labour accounts for 25% of total crop costs....