Bengal industry minister Nirupam Sen flanked by Shree Renuka Sugar chairperson Vidya Murkumbi (left) and Haldia Development Authority chairman Lakshman Seth in Calcutta on Tuesday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Feb. 7: Karnataka-based Shree Renuka Sugar Ltd will set up a sugar refinery plant at Haldia at an investment of Rs 250 crore and employ 200 people.

Announcing this at a press conference here today, chairperson Vidya Murkumbi said, “The project will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, a 2000-tonnes-per-day sugar refinery plant with an annual capacity of 7 million tonnes will be set up at an investment of Rs 250 crore. In the second phase, we will go for backward integration and set up a sugar mill which will source sugarcane and sugar beat from local cultivators.”

“This will bring in a new type of industry to the state,” said Nirupam Sen, Bengal industry minister. “Though we have two sugar units here, the private one is not running well and the government-owned unit has been closed down. Sugarcane production in the state is also dwindling as farmers don’t get good prices for their produce,” he added.

“The Bengal unit will cater to the eastern and north-eastern states and we will also export sugar from here to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia and other neighbouring states,” said Narendra Murkumbi, managing director. The company runs four sugar mills in Maharashtra and Karnataka on a co-operative lease. It is also setting up two sugar units in these states.

“The Haldia plant will process 3 million tonnes of white sugar during the harvesting season (October to March) and the raw sugar feedstock for this will come from the existing and new mills in Maharashtra and Karnataka,” Narendra said.

“During the off-season (April to September), we will import raw sugar from Brazil, Africa, Australia and other countries and process the same at the Haldia plant to make 4 million tonnes of white sugar annually for exports,” he added.

The company has been looking for a port city in the eastern part of the country for its sugar refining unit because it wanted to tap the lucrative exports market. “We are targeting an export revenue of Rs 1,000 crore from the Haldia unit,” Narendra said.

The income from domestic sales of the unit is estimated at Rs 400 crore, catering to a demand of 1.5 million tonnes of sugar from Bengal and other eastern states. “A 100-acre plot near the gate of Haldia dock has been allotted to Shree Renuka Sugar,” said Lakshman Seth, chairman, Haldia Development Authority.