K K Birla sugar mills focus on cane

Farmers in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to gain

The K K Birla group, one of the leading producers of sugar in the country, is planning to bridge the gap between increasing the demand of sugar and limited supply of sugarcane growing land and cane in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The group is co-ordinating with the UP Council for Sugarcane Research at Shahjahanpur and Muzaffarnagar for developing high yielding seeds which in turn would ensure better recovery.

The adviser of the sugar business of the group, C B Patodia, said it had adopted a two prong strategy for meeting the future demand of sugarcane.

"We are co-ordinating with the research institutes for improving quality of productivity of sugarcane as well as productivity of land. Secondly, we are distributing high yielding seeds the farmers," he said.

According to Patodia, the group is expecting 10 per cent higher recovery from sugar cane as result of the initiative.

Besides, he is hoping that cane production too would increase by 10-15 per cent following this drive.

"We hope that by 2008 we shall start getting results. This could solve the critical problem of sugarcane in future," he added.

K K Birla group currently has three sugar outfits. These are Upper Ganges Sugar, Oudh Sugar and Govind Sugar. It has four sugar mills in UP with command area of 100,000 acres and three mills in Bihar.

"We have adopted the new system in all the UP factories. Later on, we shall extend it to Bihar also. We hope that by 2007-08 our entire cane growing area in UP will be covered under the new system," he added.

Patodia pointed out that Sugar cane constitutes 70 "� 75 per cent of the manufacturing cost of sugar and viability of sugar factory largely depends on the availability of sugarcane for crush in the factory.

"Though the farmers know very well that by increasing the yield of cane in their fields, they will get better prices and the sugar factory will get more cane. But it is not easy to convince them and we are organising number of seminars for this," he added.