Bannari Amman to set up sugar plant in Tamil Nadu

The company is also planning to shift its sugar-making plant to a new location within Karnataka and increase its current capacity to 6,000 tonnes crushing per day (tcd) from the current 2,500 tcd with an investment of Rs 300 crore.

According to a company source, the new sugar complex will comprise a sugar plant with a capacity of 5,000 tcd, a co-generation plant, distilleries, ethanol plant and bio-compositing units at Kolundampattu village in Tiruvannamalai district.

The company received the nod from the state government on Monday in this regard. He declined to comment further saying the project was in the preliminary stages.

On the company's proposal to shift the Karnataka unit to a new location, he said the Karnataka government had approved Bannari's proposal to change the location from Kunthur village in Chamrajanagara district to Modhalli village in the same district.

Once the plant is moved to the new location, the production capacity will be increased to 6,000 tcd, together with a 28.8Mw co-generation plant. The expansion plan will be funded through internal accruals and debts, said the source.

Bannari Amman Sugars reported a 300 per cent increase in its net profit for the fourth quarter ended March 2008 to Rs 33 crore from Rs 8 crore in the same quarter previous year.

Net sales for the quarter increased 8 per cent to Rs 213 crore compared with Rs 197 crore, while total income rose 8.41 per cent to Rs 215 crore, over the corresponding pervious quarter.