About 70 Maharashtra sugar mills gear up for oxygen manufacturing

To satisfy the rising demand from customers for healthcare oxygen to treat Covid-19 individuals, about 70 sugar mills in Maharashtra are gearing up for manufacturing oxygen.

“This is a well timed move taken by mills in Maharashtra. About twenty five mills are currently in the method to set up oxygen plants and we are focusing on about 60-70 sugar mills that have financially carried out pretty effectively. The greater part of these mills are in rural locations and the demand from customers for oxygen listed here could be achieved by sugar mills,” claimed Prakash Naiknavare, MD, Countrywide Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF).

He additional, “Mills will have to have to modify distilleries for oxygen manufacturing. Also, mills will have to acquire care that the commitments of ethanol offer are achieved. With oxygen manufacturing, mills are shouldering social duty. Also, this could be a small business model for the mills.”

Naiknavare additional that NFCSF is likely to examine oxygen manufacturing with sugar mills in other States.

Orders pour in

BB Thombare, President of West Indian Sugar Mill Affiliation (WISMA), told BusinessLine that 15 mills which includes non-public and cooperative mills have positioned orders for skid-mounted oxygen manufacturing units. “We have approached manufacturers in China, Taiwan as community manufacturers claimed they would call for eight-ten months to fulfil the orders. Every single plant has the capability to refill ninety-one hundred oxygen cylinders every day which will be provided to govt and non-public hospitals at a nominal price tag,” claimed Thombare.

He additional that mills have positioned orders for 600 oxygen concentrators.

WISMA has appealed to sugar mills aross the region to set up 1 plant each individual and procure twenty five oxygen concentrators to satisfy the oxygen necessity in their localities.

Recently, Nationalist Congress Occasion (NCP) Main Sharad Pawar had held a conference of millers to examine oxygen manufacturing in mills. Of the 190 sugar mills that commenced crushing this period in Maharashtra, 167 mills have shut their crushing operations and 23 sugar mills are even now running.

Organization model?

Previous 12 months, as Covid-19 circumstances multiplied, several sugar mills commenced sanitiser manufacturing. According to market gamers, mills benefited from sanitiser manufacturing inspite of selling the solution at minimal fees.

According to some of the vital gamers in the market, sugar mills have no procedure to manufacture oxygen and have to have molecular sieve modification in ethanol plant for filtering oxygen. “What happens to the financial commitment when there will be no demand from customers for medicinal oxygen?,” 1 of the senior market gamers reiterated speaking to BusinessLine.

Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI) headed by Sharad Pawar, NFCSF and WISMA are collectively performing on a extended-time period approach on oxygen manufacturing so that mills continue to be in the small business even immediately after the demand from customers for healthcare oxygen recedes.