Upper Ganges Sugar & Inds, part of the KK Birla Group, has decided to set up a greenfield sugar plant of 7,000 tccpd in Uttar Pradesh. The project costing around Rs.275 crore is likely to be commissioned by 2006-07. It would be the group's first sulphur-free sugar producing unit and would be equipped with a co-generation power unit. The location of the project would be ready within the next one month.

The KK Birla Group is planning to invest Rs.400-450 crore during the next two years in its three sugar companies -- Upper Ganges Sugar & Industries, Oudh Sugar Mills and Govind Sugar Mills -- and in the greenfield plant mentioned above.

By 2006-07, the group aims to increase its total sugar producing capacity to 50,000 tonnes crushed per day (tccpd) from the existing level of 40,000 tccpd.

A Rs.90 crore capacity expansion programme is currently on at Oudh Sugar where the capacity is being increased to 10,000 tcd from 7,500 tcd. The distillery capacity is also being increased to 125 kilolitres per day (klpd) from 65 klpd.

A capacity expansion programme costing Rs.50-100 crore is likely to be taken up at Govind Sugar Mills during 2006-07.

In another development, the Bihar government has disapproved the group's plan of relocating its Samasthipur unit in the state to Uttar Pradesh. The Samasthipur unit was perennially beset by floods causing significant losses. The KK Birla Group had proposed to relocate the unit to Uttar Pradesh with an eventual objective of merging it with Upper Ganges Sugar. The Bihar government has assured the Group that it would create necessary infrastructure to insulate the unit from flood damage.