Top firms queueing to set up sugar mills in UP

Investors are coming in droves to set up sugar factories in UP, after the announcement of the new sugar policy in August last year.

As many as 16 new sugar mills and five expansion projects are in the pipeline. Of the new mills, 10 will commence production from the next crushing season beginning in October and there will be capacity expansion too. New mills and expansion will together add a crushing capacity of over 100,000 tonnes crushed a day (TCD) in UP by the end of 2007.

Among the ten sugar mills to be commissioned by October are two being set up by the Bajaj group in Muzaffarnagar and one in Bijnor, also by the Bajaj group. The crushing capacity of the three mills will be 23,000 TCD. The Sriram group is also in the process of bringing up a unit in Meerut with capacity of 7,000 TCD.

Engineering and heavy machinery major Triveni Structurals Ltd is setting up a 7,000-TCD mill in Bulandsahar. The Uttam group and Dwarikesh are setting up units in Bijnor with capacities of 7,000 TCD and 5,000 TCD, respectively.

The Chauhans of the Parle group, leaders in confectionaries and biscuits, are setting up a 3,200-TCD capacity mill in Bahriach.

Another 7,000-TCD capacity unit by the Saraogies of Balrampur Sugar Mills is coming up in Ambedkarnagar, while the KK Birla group is setting up a unit of a 7,000 TCD capacity in Kushinagar. These new units would add a fresh capacity of nearly 70,000 TCD with an investment of Rs 1,500 crore.

Six new units under various stages of construction are to commence production from October 2007, with an estimated investment of Rs 1,400 crore, and adding a fresh capacity of over 37,000 TCD.

The Bajajs are setting up two new units in Lakhimpur. The total crushing capacity of the units will be 15,000 TCD. The Bajajs are in the process of setting up two more units in Saharanpur with a capacity of 5,000 TCD and one in Shahjahanpur of a capacity of 5,000 TCD.

The DCM Consolidated group is setting up a unit in Hardoi with a 5,000 TCD capacity, while the Balrampur Sugar Mills group is setting up a unit in Gonda with a capacity of 7,000 TCD. This group already owns two mega sugar mills in UP.

The crushing capacity of the existing 106 sugar mills in UP is only 340,000 tonnes crushed per day. Of these, 55 mills are in the private sector, 28 in the co-operative sector and 23 in the public sector. In 2004-05, these mills purchased 5 million tonnes of sugarcane from the farmers at Rs 5,409 crore.

Cane Commissioner Rahul Bhatnagar, while rejecting the objections against the new policy, said, "It is a positive policy whose utility is borne out by the investment figures."