Gur and khandsari stage revival through new production technology and savvy marketing

In 2018, Singh bought 3 acres of land at Sikanderpur in Shamli district’s Unn tehsil for Rs 1.5 crore. On that land, about 9 km from his native village of Unn, he invested another Rs 14 crore to set up India’s first automated, pollution-free gur plant.

K.P. Singh monitoring gur production operations at the control room of his factory. (Express Photo by Harish Damodaran)

“I wanted it to be in my village where we farm 60 bigha (10 acres). But Unn had a mill (of Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar) and the rules didn’t permit a power crusher to come up within 7.5 km distance from an existing factory. I then chose this site, which is also 8.5 km from the Shamli sugar mill (of Sir Shadi Lal Enterprises),” said Singh.

Traditional gur-making kolhus have a single diesel engine-driven crusher with a vertical roller. The juice they extract from sugarcane is boiled in open pans, usually three and sometimes four. The fuel used for boiling is bagasse, the fibrous residue remaining after juice extraction and constituting up to 30% of the cane weight. The juice is boiled to about 75 degrees Celsius in the first pan, along with a sticky solution made from bhindi (okra) plant stems. The latter binds with the various impurities, with the resultant scum settling at the surface of the boiling juice and ladled off. The clarified juice is further boiled to 110 degrees or more in the next two pans. The boiled and concentrated syrup is finally taken to a flat platform (chak), where it cools and forms gur.

A kolhu can crush 10-20 tonnes of cane daily (tcd). Every 10 tonnes crushed yields around 1.2 tonnes of gur, with 80% sugar and 20% non-sugar (mainly iron and other micronutrients) content.

K.P. Singh at his modern automated gur manufacturing plant in UP’s Shamli district. (Express Photo by Harish Damodaran)

Khandsari units have power connection for crushing cane, but, like kolhus, use bagasse to boil the juice in open pans. They normally have two crushers, each with three horizontal rollers of 12×18 inches size. Their capacities range from 50-70 tcd (with two crushers) to 150 tcd (four crushers), with 9 (3 of 3-in-series) or 12 (4 of 3) boiling pans. Khandsari is made by transferring the concentrated liquid gur to a crystalliser pan, where it is slowly rotated and cooled for 1-2 days to form coarse sugar. The recovery of khandsari and gur in power crushers is 13-14%, higher than the average 12% in kolhus.

Singh’s plant has four crushers, each with three larger rollers of 20×30 inches, and 250 tcd capacity, expandable to 500 tcd. It makes only gur, no khandsari. “My gur is natural and black. Kolhus add masala (sodium hydrosulphite) and sugar in the boiling juice, the former to give their gur a golden hue and the latter to make it crisp. I add neither. Natural black jaggery has 80% sugars and 20% non-sugars. In regular kolhu gur, that ratio could be 95:5 due to added sugar,” he claimed.

K.P. Singh displaying the “natural black and sweet” jaggery products from his gur plant. (Express Photo by Harish Damodaran)

Singh’s gur unit runs on grid power through a 500 kilovolt-ampere (400 kilowatt) connection. There’s no biomass burning; the entire bagasse byproduct from cane crush is sold. Boiling of juice happens in plate evaporators (as against open pans). The clarified juice is evaporated first by a heat pump (which provides water at both 65 degrees Celsius and 20 degrees for cooling in the gur godown) and a mechanical vapour re-compressor (which takes the 65-degrees stored water to 105-110 degrees). The semi-solid jaggery is then poured into stainless steel moulds to cool and set.

The technology for Singh’s first-of-its-kind automated gur plant, commissioned in the first week of January 2023, was supplied by the Mohali (Punjab)-based Spray Engineering Devices Ltd. “In the 2022-23 season (November-April), we produced 400 tonnes of gur from crushing 4,000 tonnes of cane. This season, we may crush 12,000 tonnes and produce 1,800 tonnes at 15% average recovery,” Singh added.

At Fugana village in neighbouring Muzaffarnagar district’s Budhana tehsil, crushing is on at fellow Jat entrepreneur Yashpal Malik’s 150-tcd power crusher. Started two years ago at a cost of Rs 4 crore, it makes gur, khandsari, shakkar (powdered jaggery), sugarcane vinegar and value-added products. These – sold under the ‘Freyr’ and ‘Kisan Shri’ brands – include chocolate, fruit & nut and “immunity booster” jaggery cubes; masala chai jaggery powder; and gur chana.

Malik’s plant isn’t as technologically sophisticated as Singh’s, but his company – Freyr Foods Pvt. Ltd – makes up for it with new-age marketing. “There is a growing consumer segment that perceives gur as having medicinal value and being healthier than refined white sugar. We are targeting that,” noted Malik, who plans to form a Jaggery & Khandsari Manufacturers Association or JAKMA.

Semi-solid jaggery flowing into moulds at K.P. Singh’s automated gur plant. (Express Photo by Harish Damodaran)

Malik is incidentally also president of the All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, a body demanding reservation benefits for the Jat community in government jobs and educational institutions.

The real winner from the revival of UP’s traditional sweeteners industry would, however, be farmers. “They (K.P. Singh’s plant) are paying the same Rs 370 per quintal price as the Unn and Shamli sugar factories. But I get the money in cash immediately after supplying here,” said Ishwar Singh Kashyap, who grows cane on 3.5 acres of land taken on theka (lease) in Sikanderpur.

Mills are required to pay farmers within 14 days of taking cane delivery, but some – like the two mentioned – have accumulated huge arrears. Malik’s unit is offering two rates: Rs 370/quintal as immediate cash payment and Rs 380-390 on 14-days credit. “We need more kolhus and crushers like these to force mills to at least pay us on time,” pointed out Sudhir Chaudhary, a three-acre grower from Jhinjhana village in Shamli’s Kairana tehsil.

Competition from gur and khandsari makers may not suit the sugar industry that crushes nearly half of the total cane produced in UP. But farmers like Kashyap and Chaudhary wouldn’t mind it at all.