It is very important that sugarcane of the appropriate variety is available to our sugar mills at the appropriate time and in sufficient quantities. Hence, sugarcane procurement and development are fundamental to our sugar business. In view of the same, we have a separate department with experienced personnel, who handle sugarcane procurement and sugarcane development. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, sugarcane is procured through cooperative societies formed by sugarcane growers in the cane area. The sugarcane co-operative societies, based on their estimates of sugarcane production by their members enter into agreements with us for the supply of identified quantities of sugarcane at a price determined in accordance with applicable laws. This enables us to get an estimate of the sugarcane available for crushing and plan our operations accordingly.

Our sugarcane development programme is planned to, inter alia, educate the farmers regarding modern agricultural practices in sugarcane cultivation, supply of seeds, encourage replacement of inferior sugarcane varieties with varieties which are high yielding, have high sucrose content and are early maturing, encourage measures to eliminate diseases and insects/pests in sugarcane, recommend fertilisers based on soil testing, contributing for construction and repair of link roads and culverts, maintenance of drainage systems, etc, for the development of infrastructure to promote sugarcane cultivation.

We use information technology for classification and indenting of sugarcane in our sugarcane procurement system. Such systems enable us to access details about the land holdings, area under sugarcane cultivation, last few years supply of sugarcane to the factory, etc, which are used to plan sugarcane procurement and sugarcane development. Farmers are advised on sowing of the sugarcane varieties based on details collected by us on land type, soil details, etc.