Process improvements of a cane sugar plant

The sugar industry is one of the world’s major agro-based industries that provide employment to skilled and semi-skilled workers mostly from rural areas. The sugar industry plays a very important role in the country’s economy. Though this industry contributes a lot to the socioeconomic development of the Indian nation, the sugar producers are facing challenges such as a low sugarcane yield per hectare, the high cost of production due to a short crushing season, the small and uneconomic size of mills, a low sugar recovery and old technology. For sustainability, improvements are required in sugar processing to produce the best quality sugar with minimal sugar losses. This paper describes improvements in sugar processing adopted at The Andhra Sugars Ltd., India.