Praj Industries cultivates sweet sorghum to make blended fuels

Venkatachari Jagannathan
30 October 2004

The Rs108-crore turnover biotech services provider for the treatment of wastewater in distilleries and breweries, and fabricating wastewater treatment equipment, has entered into end-to-end promotion of sweet sorghum.

The company has developed a high yielding seed variety as well as the technology that would yield more ethanol. "We have filed our application for patenting the ethanol production process in India. Soon we will file for patent in other countries," says Pramod Chaudhari, chairman of the 20-year old company.

"By February-March next, we will start distributing the seeds and offer farming advice. It is a sort of backward integration for us," he explains Chaudhari.

With the world, including India, taking a serious look at blended automotive fuels, Praj Industries has expanded its R&D facility, Matrix — The Innovation Centre, to focus on more productive processes and energy crops for fuel grade ethanol production.

The current molasses production in India is around 140 crore litres which is sufficient to meet the potable and industrial alcohol requirements. For blending with petrol, though, an additional 40 crore litres is required.

After looking at other feed stock options, the company finally zeroed in on sweet sorghum. After several field trials, Chaudhari claims to have identified a high yielding variety suitable for cultivation in different regions.