Kanpur: Efforts are underway to modernize the sugar mills in Haryana and increase their revenue. Capacity utilization and sugar recovery of sugar factories under Haryana State Sugar Federation are below the national and state averages. In order to improve their working and also for producing value-added products, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur will help Haryana State Sugar Federation Factories. It will help sugar mills to improve their financial condition.
Prof. Narendra Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur said, “NSI will help Haryana State Sugar Federation Factories to improve their working and also for producing value-added products. Understanding to this effect was reached during the Director level meeting held through video-conferencing between the two organizations. Most of the sugar factories under Haryana State Sugar Federation are recording efficiencies viz. capacity utilization and sugar recovery etc. well below the national and state averages. They also do not have integrated ethanol production and power export units and thus bank upon sugar revenues which makes them hugely unprofitable under low sugar prices.”
“Institute on the request of such individual factories has already taken up the task of identifying the grey areas for improvement. We have obtained the working data of these factories for the last sugar season and are preparing a road map for improvement. It covers additions & alterations to be carried out from farm to factory level as the productivity has been observed to be lower both at farm and factory level, said Prof. Mohan.
“Keeping the view the current situation due to pandemic and also considering the commencement of next sugar season from October, we are favouring the factories with short term and long term recommendations,” he further added.
During the meeting, Shri Shakti Singh, IAS, Managing Director, Haryana State Sugar Federation also desired to seek institute help in setting up modified jaggery producing units in three of their existing plants so as to reduce sugar production and produce a healthier natural sweetener which may also add value to the sugarcane value chain. Prof. Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute presented details of a modified system for producing “non-chemical jaggery with immunity booster produced under hygienic conditions”.
The modified process focusses on higher degree of cane juice filtration, use of naturally occurring clarificants of vegetable origin, use of specially design boiling pans made of stainless steel and hygienic packing of jaggery cakes of 250 gm, 500 gm, 1 kg and so on, said Dr. Ashutosh Bajpai, Prof. Sugar Technology.
Yet another area for improvement shall be production of bio-gas from filter cake which is obtained as a waste from sugar factories and is of almost no commercial value. Sharing the experience on the trials carried out at the institute, Dr. (Mrs.) Seema Paroha, informed that about 25 kg of filter cake can produce 1 kg of bio-gas and thus may be a value added product. The bio-gas so generated can be used for many heating purposes in the factory itself and by adding facilities for scrubbing carbon di-oxide & hydrogen sulphide gas and compressing, it can be turned into Bio-CNG for use in vehicles.
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