SEDL announces new investment plans

Chandigarh: Sugar equipment manufacturer Spray Engineering Devices (SEDL) announced plans to invest Rs 500 crore in running a cooperative sugar mill and setting up a food park in Punjab.

'We will be investing a sum of Rs 250 crore on operating a cooperative sugar mill and an amount of Rs 250 crore has been earmarked for setting up a food park in Punjab,' SEDL Director (Finance), Sanjay Gupta said.

'We are the sole bidder for the Bhogpur cooperative sugar mill in Punjab and has proposed the state government to run this mill on BOOT basis,' he further said.

Punjab government had invited private investors to venture into sugar and cogeneration industry on Build-Own-Operate-Transfer model for reviving and modernising its nine cooperative sugar mills.

Besides modernising the plant, the company has proposed to scale up the sugar capacity to 5,000 tonne from 1,000 tonne at present in phased manner.
Moreover, capacity of captive cogeneration plant and area under sugar cultivation around the mill will also be enhanced under the plan,' he said.

The company is also keen to set up its first food park in Hoshiarpur under the centre's Food Park scheme. 'We have a land size of 100 acre in Hoshiarpur and plan to set up necessary infrastructure including warehousing facility here as part of our plan to have a food park here,' he said.

The company is targeting to achieve sales of Rs 300 crore by current fiscal end with a growth of 50 per cent. 'Last year, we achieved Rs 200 crore of sales and this year we hope to touch Rs 300 crore,' he said.

SEDL is a manufacturer of low cost, energy efficient sugar manufacturing equipment.