Aerial view of the Bachai complex — the mill, the distillery and the chimneys — with cane fields beyond

Businesses · Narsinghpur · Madhya Pradesh

Our businesses

Sugar to wholesale and industrial buyers; ethanol to oil marketing companies; animal feed to farmers and feed manufacturers; surplus power to the state grid; compressed biogas under development.

Village Bachai, Narsinghpur 487001, Madhya Pradesh Aerial · Bachai

Sugar

Illustration

Sugar

8,000 TCD

Cane crushing · 1,500 TCD at founding → 4,500 TCD in 2014–15 → 8,000 TCD

Aerial view of the sugar mill at Bachai, white roofs among green fields
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The mill at Bachai Fig. 01

Cane is crushed and the juice clarified into sugar. Two things come out of this stage that most mills treat as problems to be disposed of: bagasse, the fibre left after crushing, and press mud, the filter cake removed during clarification. We treat both as feedstock.

Capacity
8,000 TCD
Sold to
Wholesale and industrial buyers
Co-products
Bagasse · Press mud · Molasses

Ethanol

Ethanol

300 KLPD

Grain-based (maize) · expandable to 600 KLPD

The distillery site at dusk, storage tanks lit from below
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The distillery site at dusk Fig. 02
Distillation columns and pipework at the grain distillery at Bachai
Distillation columns, Bachai Fig. 02a
The fermentor hall at the grain distillery: three fermentation vessels beside the process building
Fermentors 1–3, Bachai Fig. 02b
Ethanol receiver and bulk storage tanks with the pump house at the Bachai distillery
Receiver and bulk storage tanks Fig. 02c
Ethanol tank farm and transformer bay at the Bachai grain distillery
Ethanol tank farm, Bachai Fig. 02d

Our grain distillery converts maize into fuel-grade ethanol for India’s blending programme, running on steam and power from the cogeneration plant next door.

The distillery’s own residue does not go to waste either — it is recovered as DDGS, a high-protein cattle feed. That is a business in its own right, and it has its own section below.

Capacity
300 KLPD, expandable to 600 KLPD
Feedstock
Maize
Storage
1 crore litres (10,000 KL)
Supplied to
Oil marketing companies, under India’s ethanol blending programme
Co-product
DDGS, a high-protein cattle feed

Animal Feed

A heap of finished DDGS spread on white paper — dried maize distillers grains, golden and granular
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Animal Feed

200 TPD

DDGS · pure maize · recovered from the grain distillery

Fermentation takes the starch out of the maize and leaves the protein, the fibre and the oil behind. Dried, that residue is DDGS — distillers dried grains with solubles — at 35% protein and 8% fat.

It is made from pure maize and nothing else, which is what gives it the colour and the consistency of the spec. It is also the reason a grain distillery need not be a wet, effluent-producing neighbour: the material that would otherwise be a disposal problem leaves the site as livestock nutrition, into the same rural economy that supplies the grain.

Product DDGS — distillers dried grains with solubles Protein 35% Fat 8% Feedstock Pure maize — no other grain Recovered from The 300 KLPD grain distillery Output 200 TPD Sold to Farmers, and animal feed manufacturers

Power

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Operators at the cogeneration plant control panels
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Power

36 MW

Bagasse cogeneration · commissioned 2016 · ~10 MW exported

Bagasse is fired in our cogeneration plant to raise steam and generate electricity. That power and steam run the sugar mill and the distillery. The surplus is exported to the state grid.

The complex is not powered by coal or by grid electricity — it is powered by the residue of the cane the farmer delivered that morning.

Installed 36 MW Exported ~10 MW to the state grid Commissioned 2016 Fuel Bagasse from our own mill

Molasses

Molasses

Co-product line

What each unit leaves behind, and where it goes

The process building at the Bachai distillery, with storage tanks alongside it
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The process building, Bachai Fig. 05

Molasses is one of three materials the sugar mill leaves behind — bagasse, press mud and molasses. We treat bagasse and press mud as feedstock; molasses is sold on its own account.

What comes out Where it goes
Bagasse Fired in the cogeneration plant to raise steam and power
Press mud Feedstock for the CBG plant Under development
Molasses Sold on its own account
DDGS High-protein cattle feed — see Animal Feed above
Fermented Organic Manure Returned to the farms that supplied the feedstock Under development
CO₂ Recoverable

Compressed Biogas

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Aerial view over the fields and tanks at the site at Bachai
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Compressed Biogas

15 TPD

Under development

Press mud has historically been a low-value material. Composted slowly in open yards, it emits methane into the atmosphere and returns very little. Anaerobic digestion changes what it is worth.

Our CBG plant will take press mud from our own mill and from neighbouring mills, digest it, and upgrade the resulting biogas to over 96% methane — a fuel meeting IS 16087 and interchangeable with CNG. Once the crushing season ends, the plant does not stop. It switches to agricultural residue — cane trash and maize stover from the same farms that supply our cane and our grain.

Capacity 15 TPD Status Under development Feedstock Press mud in season; cane trash and maize stover off season Output Biogas upgraded to over 96% methane, meeting IS 16087, interchangeable with CNG Residue Fermented Organic Manure, recognised under the Fertiliser Control Order

Integration

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Why integration is the point

Each of these plants is harder to justify alone. A standalone CBG plant has to go out and find feedstock, negotiate with farmers who have never sold to it, and build a collection network from nothing. A standalone distillery has to buy power and steam. A standalone sugar mill has to pay to dispose of its press mud, and gets very little for its bagasse.

Put together on one site, each one’s problem is another’s raw material. The feedstock is already coming through the gate. The power is already being generated. The farmer relationship already exists. The land, the weighbridge, the workshop, the laboratory, the effluent system and the management are shared. That is what makes the economics work — and it is not something a greenfield project can replicate.