Balrampur Chini Mills Limited - Emerging Stronger With Green Initiatives

Balrampur Chini Mills Limited (BCML), with its 10 mills in Uttar Pradesh, has been striving over the last few years to emerge strong not just on its balance sheet but also as a progressive company that cares for thousands of farmers supplying it with the raw material and also the environment. It was among the first Indian sugar companies where all its distilleries had graduated to zero liquid discharge as all the wastewater is treated and used for internal processes.

The driver of this new vision is Avantika Saraogi, Promoter and Business Lead, New Initiative, of BCML. “We all need to pay heed to the environment as the question now is about climate, particularly when it fluctuates like crazy and crop yields go down or get ruined due to heat waves, droughts, or floods. This is one of the reasons why the ethanol programme is not moving forward as planned by the government despite the best efforts by the center and the states, says Saraogi, who has successfully made the switch from an avid photographer to a food entrepreneur and then a successful businesswoman, playing a leading role in the family enterprise.

Last year, BCML commissioned expansion of three distilleries and doubled its ethanol capacity from 560 kl/ per day to 1050 kl/ per day from December 2022. The company plans to run at full capacity during the ongoing crushing season, which begun in November.

“We were the largest producers of ethanol last season, which was around 20 crore liters of alcohol produced, and we hope to retain that position this season too as we plan to be upwards of 30 crore liters. The sugar industry is poised to make around 60% of country’s total ethanol tender of around 550 crore litres balance to come from grains,” shares Saraogi.

The company takes pride in making payments to farmers in 7-10 days. Linked to 5.5 lakh farmers over 3.6 lakh hectares of land under sugarcane, crushed in BCML’s 10 factories, the company has 700 field staff who engage with the farmers every month in over 10,000 villages, providing all necessary support including free soil testing in its 3 testing labs. The farmers are advised on each and every agri practice required in a timely manner and also the fertilizer usage to prevent excess or inadequate use according to their particular soil. The company maintains a fertility map of the entire catchment area under its care to ensure sustainable agriculture practices, including preventing stubble burning.

In this season, BCML is expected to see a 10% increase in cane crushing over 10.30 MMT crushed last season, which was 15% more than in the previous season, and better recovery.

Crop health and sugar recovery from sugarcane go hand in hand. This will be reflected in the rise in sugar and ethanol production this season, which is good as the sugar prices are pretty decent, explains Saraogi, who is pretty passionate on the subject of water requirement for cultivation of sugarcane.

Passionately disclaiming that sugarcane is a water guzzler, Saraogi points out that it is wrong to compare sugarcane, which is a year-long crop, with 3-4 months cycle crops. “If you see on month to month basis or on generation of biomass per year basis or even generation of ethanol per year basis, sugarcane is an excellent crop in terms of land use, water use in terms of per unit of ethanol produced as compared to any other crop, and most importantly greenhouse gas emissions are much lower as we have our own biomass which is used for producing captive green energy that fires our boilers,” she has been stressing at many important fora.

For efficient use of water, farmers are being advised to go in for skip furrows or very shallow irrigation, and even drip where there is extreme scarcity which uses a just a fraction of the water normally used by sugarcane farmers.

“For more sustainable agriculture we are also advising farmers to go in for intercropping based on soil type so that they are synergetic, as in case of potato and sugarcane, this is beneficial to both crops,” shares Saraogi. “They gain on an average 30% more if they plant an intercrop, if it is potato then there is a gain of 27% approx., if mustard then 33% approx., as compared to solo autumn planted sugarcane. Farmers stand to gain more if they do better agro practices.”

So far farmers have tried intercropping sugarcane with peas, tomatoes, mustard, eggplant, chickpeas, garlic, coriander etc. To guard against pests, use of bio-fungicides and bio- pesticides are being encouraged. The company has a lab where bio-fungicides and bio- pesticides are being produced on a small scale. Having seen the impact of these bio- products, the company is planning to ramp up capacity.

Balrampur Mill, which starts crushing sugarcane from November till end of April, also advises farmers supplying it sugarcane to grow more than one crop as it believes crop rotation is important. Farmers are advised to restrict sugarcane cultivation to a maximum of two-third of their agricultural land (1/3rd plant cane and 1/3rd ratoon cane) to ensure the soil health does not deteriorate and biodiversity is maintained.

BCML is not using any outside energy or coal for the operation of its mills as it generates enough electricity for not just the 10 mills but also families living in the colony within the campus. It is also selling the surplus to the power grid. The company currently does not utilize all the bagasse available with it for power generation since the price of green power supplied to the grid has dipped, instead part of it is sold to paper/pulping mills. Apart from making sugar, the company uses the molasses to make ethanol and also, as part of the state policy, it makes extra neutral alcohol, which is a colorless food grade alcohol. BCML sells ethanol to the oil marketing companies through a tender process. “We are expecting a revenue of upward of 30% from our distillery section. Much depends on the quality of cane we get,” says Saraogi.

Showing by example, BCML extensively distributes hundreds of bags of press mud to farmers to till into the fields with decomposing material. Within a month the press mud gets degraded, enriching the soil. In fact, the use of press mud and its impact on the soil is encouraging farmers to explore commercialization of agriculture waste generated in their farms.

Other initiatives include using waste that is generated in the fields – sugarcane leaves- to be laid on the fields along with some decomposing material to help enrich the land, retain moisture and improve water in soil and also the carbon content. The farmers are happy with the results.

Saraogi narrates how the company had helped farmers last year when the sugarcane crop was hit by top borer infestation, threatening to destroy large tracts of crop. The company helped farmers to cut off 50 lakh sugarcane shoots infested by top borers in a single unit, and much more all over its catchment. This exercise was done four times, helping farmers not only save on insecticides but also overcome the problem of pests becoming resistant to drugs because of overuse. Instead, the mechanical intervention helped the farmers to not only control the disease but also ensured a healthier and more bountiful crop due to enhanced tillering (growth of side shoots). The removal of the infested part also helps in the thickening of the remaining plant.

To help improve the sugarcane yield, 3 years back the company set up a tissue culture lab and is producing 3 lakh plantlets a year of new high yielding varieties. In the first year, these were planted in the company’s own farms as they needed more care. Thereafter they were given to some farmers for multiplying. The crop is not being crushed instead the process is supervised for three years before the process of commercialization begins. The company sees considerable demand for high yielding plantlets, as every four years their aim is that entire crop should be rejuvenated.

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