UP govt receives Rs 5,400-cr investment for alcohol distillation plants

Uttar Pradesh has received private and cooperative sector investment of more than Rs 5,400 crore in 31 greenfield alcohol distillation plants across the state.

The new factories will have a combined alcohol distillation capacity of 1.45 billion litres, according to UP additional chief secretary, sugar and excise, Sanjay Bhoosreddy. So far, 18 of these plants with a total alcohol capacity of 968 million litres have already started commercial production.

“These greenfield units will generate fresh employment for 8,267 people. In fact, more than 5,000 youth have already been employed, and an investment of Rs 3,530 crore injected into the proposed projects,” he added.

The state government has been dexterously ramping up capacity in different manufacturing domains to cater to the domestic demand and also export to other states. The alcohol sector is directly linked with the sugarcane and ethanol value chain, thus benefitting the agricultural road map.

“The existing UP distilleries — numbering 38 — have also increased their installed capacity by 592 million litres during the last four years,” Bhoosreddy said, adding that UP now has a consolidated alcohol production capacity of more than 3 billion litres annually.

Alcohol is widely used in a variety of industrial products, including liquor, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries.

At the same time, the state government is also promoting the setting up of microbreweries to boost the hotel and travel sector. A microbrewery is a small brewery, which produces limited quantity of beer for captive consumption, such as hotels and restaurants, especially in tourism hotspots.

In the last four years alone, five new breweries have been established in the state with a total investment basket of Rs 363 crore.

Meanwhile, the excise department is facilitating new wineries to provide quality and legitimate leisure drinks to the state consumers. Since UP is among the major horticultural producers in nutritious crops such as mango, peach, etc, the wineries value chain will benefit state farmers, increase rural incomes, create local jobs and catalyse food processing industry.

“The state has liberalised norms and simplified rules to further enhance the ‘ease of doing business’ matrix and attract private sector investment. The sustained efforts have borne fruits and UP has witnessed the setting up of a large number of distilleries, microbreweries, sanitiser units, etc, between July 2019 and March 2023,” he underlined.