Jhansi Biotech sets up Rs 2-crore R&D facility in Sri Lanka

Jhansi Biotech Private Limited, a consultancy group which supplies eco-friendly, anti-pollution technologies and a full range of bioproducts to select customers in West Asia, Africa, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Andhra Pradesh, has set up its office "� Sri Bio-Tech Lanka Private Limited "� at Hanwella, Sri Lanka, at an investment of Rs 2 crore.

The Sri Lankan office, which is also involved in research and development (R&D), has been set up in collaboration with an Australian company, Oceanic Fats and Oils Private Limited.

Speaking to Business Standard, M Lakshmi Prasad, group managing director and principal scientist, said: "At present, Jhansi Biotech is running two R&D centres "� Sasya Bioremedies and Sujay Agri Labs "� in the state. While the group invested Rs 2 crore in them, another Rs 2 crore was invested in the Sri Lankan unit. The two units in Andhra Pradesh achieved a business of Rs1 crore last fiscal and the figure is likely to be the same this fiscal too."

"While the labs have researched, developed and manufactured bioproducts, Jhansi Biotech supplies the technologies to customers for managing environment by treating organic effluents in para-boiled rice, brawn oil, oil palm and ginning mills, distilleries, confectioneries, rubber waste, tea refuse, sugar factories and municipal sewerages. The group also sells biofertilisers, biopesticides, botanical pesticides, biofungicides, bionematicides, and biodegraders and bioremediation solutions. It provides soil, water and wastewater testing services as well."

Jhansi Biotech is also planning to patent some of its products. According to Lakshmi Prasad, the company has developed a carrier-medium 'Micro Power' from the used bacteria found in the sludge of Black Sea in Israel.

"These bacteria identify and remove harmful bacteria and other pollutants and completely detoxify any sludge in a short time at a cheaper cost. Pharma companies find detoxification of sludge formed during manufacture of antibiotics an expensive affair, and that's why many of them are shifting units to Visakhapatnam so that they can dump the sludge in sea there. Under such circumstances, Micro Power would be the natural choice for the Hyderabad," he said.

Eichornia classicrapsipes (gurrapu dekka), Lakshmi Prasad said, is a much feared weed, which grows rampantly everywhere in Andhra Pradesh. But its widespread long and thick roots are storehouses of a number of useful bacteria. The group's scientists developed an anti-pollutant product out of the weed. They also developed a drug from yeast, which improves digestion tremendously besides controlling diarrhoea in humans. The group is striving to establish an integrated biotechnological laboratory for facilitating production of all types of bioproducts in a single entity," he said.