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Vishwaraj Sugar Industries plans to increase sugarcane yield to 100 tonnes from 40 tonnes in the 49 villages in its command area .
This year, the company — which is one of the largest sugar mills in Belgaum — is planning to use around 1,000 acres of farmland to lay a subsoil drip irrigation network, which is expected to help farmers achieve the output that the company is targeting.
Mukesh Kumar, Executive Director of Vishwaraj Sugar, told Business Line that the mill has tied up with Netafim, an Israeli-based company, to get the technology needed to set up this network.
The capital cost of laying the drip irrigation network is around Rs 50,000 for an acre. Farmers will be given a bank loan of Rs 35,000 and the rest will be Karnataka Government susbidy, he said.
Vishwaraj is keen to enhance the productivity of the cane farms as it requires additional cane for its upcoming new sugar mill in the same location. The mill has a capacity of 5,500 tonne a day. The company plans to raise Rs 374 crore through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to double output to 11,000 tonnes a day, he said. It also plans to take a term loan of Rs 70 crore from banks for other upcoming projects.
A portion of the IPO proceeds would be used to expand the mills’ power co-generation capacity to 66 MW from 36 MW now, said Kumar.
“Currently, the company has surplus power of 22 MW, out of which 14 MW is sold through Tata Power Trading Company, while the balance is sold to the Hubli Electricity Supply Company,” Kumar said.
Distillery plan
It will also expand the distillery capacity to 1,00,000 litres a day from 35,000 litres now , which would double production capacity of Indian Made Foreign Liquor to 5,000 cases a day.
Vishwaraj Sugar posted a net profit of Rs 51.59 crore on a turnover of Rs 425.81 crore in FY12.
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