Boys on a two-wheeler cover themselves with a cloth to beat the heat on a summer day in Noida, India, June 10, 2019. /VCG Photo
With temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius, India's most severe and longest heat waves in decades have claimed 36 lives since it began last month.
According to the local government, the delayed arrival of monsoon rains means people might suffer the scorch longer.
The number of India's heat waves has been increasing during the past decade due to climate change, in which thousands of lives have been taken as the affected area grows larger. This year, in particular, such inclement weather has impacted many states in central and northern India.
States affected most severely include Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
A man quenches his thirst on a summer day in Gurugram, India, June 10, 2019. /VCG Photo
Millions of Indians have been desperately awaiting overdue monsoon rains as they struggle to secure drinking water amid a heat wave that has been rapidly drying up reservoirs and sending temperatures soaring across the country.
The monsoon usually covers the cane growing areas of Maharashtra by June 10, but it is yet to arrive this year, weather department data shows.
India's sugar production could fall as much as 15 percent in 2019 to 2020 from the year before as severe drought hits the key growing region, Maharashtra, according to industry sources.
The drop would ease pressure on Indian sugar mills to export surplus sugar, likely supporting global prices that fell more than 20 percent last year, partly due to subsidized shipments from the country.
People reach out for glasses of a sweetened water drink being distributed to passersby as a gesture of goodwill on a hot day in New Delhi, India, June 10, 2019. /VCG Photo
The world's number two producer of the sweetener could churn out 28 to 29 million tonnes in 2019 crop year starting from October, down from 33 million tonnes this year, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd (NFCSF).
"The cane area has fallen drastically in Maharashtra due to drought. The water scarcity could also hit cane yields,” Naiknavare said.
Water scarcity has also created a shortage of cattle fodder in some areas, farmers like Ramdas Pawar from Maharashtra have been selling sugar cane for fodder.
"Cane was wilting. I harvested two acres and sold cane as fodder to a cattle camp," Pawar said.
Years of bumper cane harvests and record sugar production have hammered domestic sugar prices, making it hard for mills to pay money owed to farmers, who form an influential voting bloc.
To bring down cane arrears and reduce rising inventories, New Delhi has been providing incentives to mills for overseas sugar sales and set an export target of five million tonnes for 2018 to 2019.
Despite lower production, India will still have to export sugar in the next season due to ample stock from two years of ample harvest, said Naiknavare from NFCSF.
Sugar inventories are likely to rise to 14.7 million tonnes at the beginning of the new season on October 1, up 37.4 percent from a year ago, said the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) last month.
(With input from Reuters and the New York Times)