The government has taken penal action against 28 sugar mills in several states for failing to submit online data on sugarcane crushed, production, dispatches and available stock of sugar. The states include Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

An official release says, the centre in its endeavour to streamline and computerise the data management system in sugar sector, has created a platform which facilitates all sugar mills in the country to submit online data from the last sugar season of 2011-12. Our correspondent reports,

527 sugar mills were engaged in cane crushing operation from 2001 to 2012 and out of these, 484 sugar mills have furnished up-to-date data till August this year.