The state has essentially an agrarian economy with a lower industrial output as compared to other states of India. A prominent feature of the industrial scenario of the Punjab is its small sized industrial units. There are nearly 194,000 small scale industrial units in the state in addition to 586 large and medium units.
The state produces nearly 70% of the best quality cotton in India. In spite of several advantages, there is one major disadvantage that the total spindlage capacity of the state is only 1.5% of the country.
The cotton mills are located at Abohar, Malout, Phagwara, Amritsar, Kharar, Mohali and Ludhiana. Malerkotla, Abohar, Malout and Bhatinda are important for cotton ginning and pressing and nearly 25.3 lakh (25,300,000) bales of cotton are pressed annually over here. About 97 million kilograms of yarn and 36.5 million metres of cloth were produced in the cotton textile mills of Punjab.
The sugar mills in Punjab are located at Batala, Gurdaspur, Bhogpur, Phagwara, Nawanshahr, Zira, Morinda, Rakhra, Dhuri, Fazilka, Nakodar, Dasua, Budhewal, Budhladha, Mukerian, Tarn Taran, Ajnala, Faridkot, Jagraon, Amloh, Patran and Lauhka.
One of the salient feature of the sugar industry is that out of the 14 mills, 12 are in the Co-operative sector and only 2 are privately owned. Compared to the state of Uttar Pradesh and some other Indian states, the size of the sugar mills in Punjab is small. The Co-operative sugar mill at Morinda is the biggest in the state with a daily crushing capacity of 4,000 tonnes of sugarcane.
