Tamil Nadu Sugar Industry

About Tamil Nadu Sugar Industry

The Agro based sugar mills play an important role in the economic growth of rural areas with the sole aim to generate large scale direct employment. Apart from that, a lot of indirect employment to rural population is also provided. Tamil Nadu Sugar industry is responsible for about 10% of the total sugar production in India. Majority of sugar units in Tamil Nadu lies with the cooperative sector, with some private players' also gathering momentum.

At present, the sugar industry in Tamil Nadu stands in a total mess similar to that of the other rural industries. The sugar industry had faced a boom in the 1980s but the crisis era started from 1990, all after the economic liberalization. With the surge in the procurement price of sugarcane, surplus production and reduction in the open market sugar price, directed the industry and the sugar factories, thereafter to have a glut of stocks.

At present the Tamil Nadu sugar industry comprises of 41 Sugar Mills in Tamil Nadu, with 16 of them in the co-operative sector, 3 sugar mills in public sector and 22 Sugar Mills in the private sector. At present, around 38 Sugar Mills are operational, while 3 mills viz. Madurantakam Co-operative Sugar Mill (from 2001-02 season) Madura Sugars (from 2002-03 season) and Arunachalam Sugar Mills (from 2003-04 season) have stopped functioning.

Sugar production in Tamil Nadu

Year	Area registered (Lakh Hectare)	Sugarcane crushed (LMT)	Sugar produced (LMT)	Recovery %
2003-04	1.40	92.80	9.20	9.92
2004-05	2.56	114.92	11.09	9.65
2005-06	2.97	231.46	21.38	9.24
2006-07	3.03	274.49	25.39	9.25
2007-08	2.89	229.68	21.41	9.32
2008-09	2.25	166.41	16.16	9.71

Nine new integrated Sugar complexes in Tamil Nadu

Name of Mills	Taluk	District
Kothari-Sathamangalam	Ariyalur	Ariyalur
Rajshree- Semmedu	Gingee	Villupuram
Sakthi-Modakurichi	Erode	Erode
Dharani- Kalaianallur	Sankarapuram	Villupuram
Empee Sugars-Idaikal	Ambasamudram	Tirunelveli
Shree Ambika-Manjini	Attur	Salem
Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan-Udumbiyam	Veppanthattai	Perambalur
Bannariamman- Kolunthampattu	Thandarampattu	Tiruvannamalai
Madras Cements Vengur	Tirukoilur	Villupuram

Setting up new integrated Sugar complexes in Tamil Nadu

The Sugar industry in Tamil Nadu have come out as a tool for economic translation and the Government had therefore decided set up nine new sugar mills in the state. The new mills have been set up following the guidelines and they will function as integrated Sugar complexes. Till now, three projects viz. Sakthi Sugar Mills, Erode, Kothari Sugar Mills, Ariyalur and Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals Ltd., Gingee have been accomplished and commissioned and it is estimated that the rest of the mills will start their crushing operations during the 2009-10 season. The State Government delimitated the Cane areas for establishment of nine new integrated Sugar complexes with different options of co-generation, distillery and ethanol production, tissue culture lab, soil testing lab and bio-composting.