By IANS,
Chennai : Empee Sugars and Chemicals Ltd has started sugarcane farming in Tamil Nadu on the expectation that it will be able to commission its planned greenfield sugar plant in the state in time, a top company official said here Wednesday.
The company plans to commission in November 2009 a 5,000 tonne crushing per day (TCD) greenfield sugar plant at Ambasamudram in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.
In anticipation of that, the company has already raised seed cane over 1,000 acres out of the total 2,000 acres that will have to be put under sugarcane farming to feed the sugar plant.
“The entire quantity of seed cane will be raised by this September and commercial planting will start from October,” the company’s managing director K.Jayachandran said.
Empee Sugars is adopting the corporate/contract farming route to get cane for the plant.
The method is also easy to implement in Tirunelveli district because of large land holdings with virgin soil where subsoil water is also available.
“We have started mechanised ploughing, planting and inter-cultivation operations. We have ordered for five more such machines from Japan,” he said.
According to him, the company has placed orders for major equipment like boilers, turbines, mills, electrical gadgets and boiling house.
The orders have been placed under an assured delivery schedule to enable the company commission the integrated complex by November 2009.