Vishwaraj Sugar Industries, based in Belagavi, is an integrated sugar company that produces sugar, power, and ethanol, and it intends to build a Rs. 400 crore Greenfield Sugar Mill as well as expand its existing distillery within the district.
The company’s executive director Mukesh Kumar said, “We are setting up a Rs. 250 crore greenfield sugar plant along with a distillery having 100 kilo litre per day (KLPD) capacity, exclusively for ethanol production. Also, at an estimated cost of Rs. 150 crores, we plan to expand our existing distillery capacity by 150 KLPD. These projects will be funded through both equity and debt. The expanded facilities are expected to operate at full capacity over the next couple of years.
The company manufactures products such as rectified spirit, anhydrous ethanol from molasses and sugar syrup. Belagavi is known for sugarcane with a high recovery rate of sugar. Since the de-regularization of sugar, the company has developed a robust marketing and sales team and the company’s turnover is expected to double in the next five years after the proposed projects go on stream.
The company has reduced its dependence on sugar, and in the year ending March 2021, sugar sales accounted for 66% of the total revenue. However, the ethanol revenue is expected to go from 30-35 % to 50 percentage terms going forward following the government’s initiative, Kumar said. Both sugar and ethanol prices are expected to remain firm. Sugar prices have firmed up due to market forces in the local market, and prices will remain higher in the international market due to the failure of crops in Brazil, he added.