Nitin Gadkari – The Most Crooked & Corrupt – Secret Disclosers - poopathi@gmail.com

Nitin Gadkari – The Most Crooked & Corrupt – Secret Disclosers

First thing Nitin Gadkari did when BJP came to power was to acquire ‘Distillery’ license that would ensure Rs.2 crores per day profits though it was under the pretensions of helping Sugar Farmers to earn more and setting up of a Sugar Mill.

This case study is crucial as this Purti Sugar Mill was the first major venture undertaken by Nitin Gadkari – for an ex Minister and close to RSS BJP NDA every rule was broken to promote him.

There was no sugar cane cultivation area in the normal operating range of the Project Site yet he was allowed to set up a Sugar Factory.

Sugar mill required just 25 acres of land but Nitin Gadkari was allowed 250 acres for 22 MW Cogen power project – even Maruti Car factory had 100 acres land.

When we in UP were opposed to 2500 acres for 10,000 MW project in Dadri, he silently grabbed 250 acres for 22MW cogen plant with eye on 500MW coal based project.

In addition he also managed to get license for ‘Distillery Complex Also’ and Ethanol project as well with capacity of 45,000 & 120,000 Liters Per Day. Distillery and Ethanol plants are identical.

As I said earlier like a pig he looks left but runs right, though in original plan he wanted Purti Cooperative Sugar Mill – he turned a Cooperative to private company.

165,000 proof liters per day is 412500 liters per day or 5,50,000 bottles per day of alcoholic drinks. Even Rs.50 per bottle profit is Rs.2.7 crores per day income or Rs. 2 crores per day profits.

Ravinder Singh

February18, 2011

http://www.sinetinfo.com/pdf/casestudies_sugar.pdf

PURTI CO-OPERATIVE SUGAR MILL LTD.:

M/s Purti sugar mill is situated at Khursapar (Bela) village near about 60 KM from Nagpur at national highway (Nagpur-Chandrapur) in Umred Taluka. This complex has been started within the leadership of Shri. Nitinji Gadkari, Chairman, who had laid the foundation stone of this multiproduct complex, which in the years to come would be the ideal example for whole Indian sugar industry sector.

This multiproduct complex is spread over 250 Acres and consist of the

Following

• Sugar complex -capacity 2500 TPD/day (tons per day)

• Distillery complex- capacity Sprit– 45,000 KLPD (kilo liters per day) Ethanol– 1,20,000 KLPD

• Co-generation complex( capacity 22 MW)

• Bio-disel complex capacity (3000 liters/day)

• Bio-composting unit

Sugar Complex

The sugar industry began its crushing operation in 2002 with a capacity of 2500 TPD. of cane per day. But eventually operating a sugar factory in an area where small number of farmers are planting sugar cane which is insufficient to assure the operation of the sugar factory would not have been commercially viable. This year the restriction of the command area has been removed by the government which in turns helps the industry to procure the sugarcane from outside the command area.

In this region water table is very low therefore water scarcity problem is very high as compare to other sugarcane growing region. This sugar factory has an enormous importance for the surrounding community.

Being located in the rural area, it provides employment opportunity and increases secondary business in the area. During the harvesting season, the cane is taken to the mill mostly by tractors (single & doubled trolley), bullock cart, and trucks. This year, most of the sugar cane came from the nearby areas like Wardha , Nanded, Selu, which approximately takes 6 to 8 hrs, while in case of Madhya Pradesh it takes more than 12 to 15 hrs.

Harvesting is done by hand. Sugarcane cutting is a hard and dirty job, but provides employment to people in nearby areas where jobs are scarce. Sugarcane is cut at about ground level, the top green leaves are chopped off and then the stalk is bundled. Once a complete bundle has been assembled, it is removed from the field with the help of labourers and transferred to a larger vehicle for transport to the mill. The harvested sugar cane should be crushed within 24 hrs. to get a good recovery of sugar. Therefore every sugar mill has provided transportation and harvesting facility to the farmers on nominal charges, which ultimately provides secondary employment to the nearby communities.

In general, almost all sugar mills depend for their supplies of sugar cane on large number of independent farmers, producing the crop for profits. If the yield per hectare is improved, the benefit goes to the growers while if the cane is rich enough in sugar content; it becomes profitable to the mills. Therefore cane

growing and milling are essentially a joint enterprise what helps the grower helps the miller and vice- versa.

Sugarcane considered as a alternative crop in this area, most of the farmers go for the cotton, some of them cultivating orange, which in this area, gives a good income to the farmers. As this mill has started operating only recently, the mill at present does not have an agriculture development department but through traditional channels, they are in touch with the farmers and purchase sugar cane from nearby areas. The harvesters which are deployed by the mill are mostly from the area where the sugarcane growing and harvesting is a traditional

business like western Maharashtra, Maratwada & Andhra Pradesh. They are largely migrated workers who live nearby to the factory in small tents (Zopadi).

They harvest the crop and then load it on to the vehicle in presence of the crop owner (Farmer). Each group of harvester consists of 8-10 members. The transporting agent gets the slip signed by the farmer and goes to the weighing and crushing center. Weighing is located near to the crushing center. Once the weighing has being carried out, mill officials will note down the entry of the crop weight, name of crop owner and the vehicle number, for further procedure. The payment of the crop will directly be deposited in the account of each farmer or can be paid directly. The sugarcane vehicles is then unloaded at the crushing centre with the help of lifters, the lifted bundle of sugarcane is then conveyed

to the cane leveler where it is cut and chipped. The cut cane blanket is then fed to tandem of mill, wherein it is crushed and the juice is extracted. The manager needs to process the cane as soon as possible if sucrose losses are to be avoided. Typically, cane is processed within 24 hours after harvesting. Following

are the steps, which are involved in the manufacturing of sugar.

Extraction of juice: The extraction is actually conducted as a counter-current process using fresh hot water being pumped at one end in the opposite direction to the cane. The more the water is used, the more is the sugar extracted but the more dilute the mixed juice, hence more energy will be required to evaporate the juice. In many factories, the cane is crushed in a series of large roller mills similar to a mangle [wringer] and the sweet juice extracted. Generally juice looks pretty dirty, because of contamination with soil particles from the fields, small

fibers and the green extracts from the plant. There are several important aspects to extraction which involve the energy balance of the mill, the efficiency of extraction and therefore ultimately the profitability of operations. The fibrous cane material after the extraction of juice is called the bagasse

Clarification: -The extracted juices are then heated to 60-65o c in juice heater and passed to reaction tank where the liming and sulphitation takes place. This limed and sulphited juice is pumped back to a ‘clarifier’ after heating to 100o c. which remains there for about 3 hr. During this stage in the clarifier, the heavy insoluble impurities, mostly soil and mud are precipitates which are then pumped to a vacuum filter, which remove the liquid portion from the mud, while the solid muddy portion is taken out of the mill building. This is used as manure or can serve as raw material for the extraction of crude wax.

Boiling: -The raw juice is now clarified and is called the clarified juice. It is then passed through a set of evaporator which boils the excess water under vacuum

concentrating it gradually, as it passes from one evaporator to another. Finally concentrated juice called the sugar syrup is sent to the pan floor wherein the final

crystallization takes place, under vacuum. The evaporation is carried out under vacuum.

Crystallization: - A viscous solid mass consisting of sugar crystals and mother liquor is dropped in the crystallizer and it then passes through the pug mills

to centrifugal machines. Due to very high gravity factor, the viscous mother liquor passes through the opening in the liner and the sugar is retained on the screen and the sugar is then dropped in hopper.

Grading & Packaging:-

The sugar is then passed on to a unit called grader, which grades the sugar in different grades and in different sizes as per the Indian sugar standards. At present, Purti is producing S-30 which is around Rs. 30– 100 less than M-30 grade of sugar. The sugar is bagged in the pre-stamped gunny bags, weighed; the grades and number marked on the bags and these bags are stored in godowns and are finally sold. The transportation of sugar from mill to market is mostly carried out by road. Though the Indian sugar industry is more concentrated in rural part of India but the area is well connected with most of the metropolitan cities in India.

Distillery Complex

The by-product generated from the production of sugar is sent to the down stream industry. Molasses, generated from sugar manufacturing finds its way to the distillery industry which is adjacent to the sugar complex, where it is used as a raw material to produce various industrial chemicals, alcohol, and power biofuels. Presently M/s Purti Co-operative Sugar Mill has a well equipped distillery complex for production of Sprit and Ethanol with installed capacity of 45,000 KLPD of sprit and 1,20,000 KLPD of ethanol which is an important basic feed stock for manufacture of various chemicals. These chemicals are good substitutes for petrochemicals and petrol based chemicals in India. The waste water produced is treated in the effluent treatment plant and then treated water is recycled for on-site use, sent back to the river or used to irrigate the cane-farms.

Molasses stream.

The fibrous cane material left after the extraction of juice, called bagasse goes to the boiler, wherein the same is burnt producing steam and electricity. At present M/s Purti Co-operative Sugar Mill is producing 2 MW electricity that powers the mill to process sugar from cane juice and alcohol in distillery industry.

M/s Reliance Industries has recently signed an electricity purchase

agreement of 22 MW with Purti. The bagasse is being stored into a open ground. The construction of full fledge co-generation plant is ongoing. Very soon it will start working to its full capacity. the two multi fuel boiler has been constructed with installed capacity i.e. working pressure 22 KG and 67 KG respectively

Bio-Disel Complex

Purti Sakhar Karkhana is one of its kind which has a bio-diesel plant. This plant was started to cope up with the power shortage and fuel problem. When the sugar complex was in the preliminary stage there was a lot of vehicles and generator use to work for 24 hr. which consume huge amount of fuel and accounted for the extra cost to the mill, which prompted Mr. Gadkari chairman

of this mill and he had started the bio-disel plant with an installed capacity of 3000 liters as a solution to the problem. This complex has started to make biodisel from cotton seed oil and Jatropa (local name karanji) cotton seed which is locally available in good quantity and quality. Presently all the vehicles ,generators and other instruments which need petroleum fuel are running on biodisel produced by M/s Purti Co-operative Sugar Mill.

Bio-composting unit

Spent wash generated from the distillery, sludge from ETP and excess of bagasse is used as a filler material for bio-composting, The produced compost is then supplied to the farmers at nominal cost.

Recommendations:

1) Mill should take up a sort of programme to encourage the nearby farmers for sugarcane plantation.

2) There are very few water irrigation schemes in this area therefore mill can think to develop water reservoirs and provide irrigation facility on subsidized rate.

3) As practiced in the western Maharashtra mill can think for the bio-gas generation plant.

4) Mill have to undertake few rain water, rooftop rain water and ground water recharging projects in the area.

5) It is highly recommended that mill should established agriculture development department.

Acknowledgement

Mr. Nitinji Gadkari, Chairman

Mr. Sudhir Diwe, Managing Director

Mr. D. R. Jadhav, Works Manager (Sugar)

Mr. Sandeep Mendjoge, Sr. Executive Admin.

M/s Purti Sakhar Karkhana Ltd.

2nd floor, Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan, Gandhisagar,

Mahal, Nagpur-440 002

Maharashtra, India