India produces 240 to 260 million tonnes of sugarcane,out of which about 50% sugarcane is crushed in 400 giant sugar factories producing 11 to 12 million tonnes of white sulphitation sugar. In India,big sugar factories use vacuum pan boiling system and sulphitation process which is highly capital intensive having very complicated machinery and equipments.Our sugar factories produce one more by-product unfit for human consumption namely molasses.In India, over 4 million tonnes of molasses is produced every year using half a million kg.of sulphur.Khandsari sugar factories, too use sulphitation process and produce molasses.This quantity of molasses is equivalent to providing 35 gms of jaggery everyday to all the 350 million children of India throughout the year.Hence such an enormous quantity of high calory food is wasted by the use of sulphitation process.

As an alternative to this, we have developed a low cost tiny sugar cum jaggery plant based on scientific process and using efficient machinery.This plant completely avoids sulphitation process and is based on open pan system.It produces white crystal natural sugar and natural jaggery without using hazardous chemicals with no molasses at all and gets combined recovery of 13-14% which is more than big sugar mills and khandsari plants.Since such units can be set up in the farm itself and can be managed by farmers themselves, we are confident that this new concept "SUGAR FROM FARM, NOT FROM FACTORY" will be widely accepted all over the world in the 21st century.

(1) MILLING & CLARIFICATION:
Sugarcane stalks are crushed in the mill with attached gear box to get cane juice. Mill consists of three rollers-Top roller, Feed roller and Bagasse roller. Cane passes and is crushed first between top roller & bagasse roller.Two rollers are adjustable.Fine circular Vee grooves provided on the rollers causes heavy extraction of juice and breakage of cane fibres giving fine bagasse. From there,juice is transferred to settling tank to separate mud & foreign matter impurities. Then juice goes for filtration for further clarification.Then it is transferred by pump to overhead tank from where it flows to desired BEL (furnace with set of boiling pans) by gravity through pipe lines.

(2) JUICE BOILING:
Boiling pans are arranged on the tunnel type furnace (BEL) and juice is boiled in it. Clarification process goes on while boiling. On each bel,complete set of boiling pans are arranged in such boiling. Juice is first drawn to rectangular pan by simply opening valve of the pipe line extending from the overhead juice tank to the boiling pans.While heating and boiling the juice, boiling process technician goes on removing impurities and dirt by scumming, as impurities go on accumulating on the surface of boiling juice in the pan.Herbal clarificants are sprinkled in the boiling pan frequently as and when required and dirt accumulated on the surface is frequently removed by scumming. As the water evaporated from the juice,juice syrup is transferred from one pan to the other for greater concentration. Ultimately sugar crystals are formed in the thick syrup. Then it is transferred into crystallizer by laddles.Control of juice boiling is really ingenious process, which requires experience and skill for maximum recovery of sugar and jaggery. The process technician has to be very careful to transfer the juice from pan to pan with a view to ensure (i) Maximum possible clarification of juice (ii) Proper concentration of juice into syrup and from syrup to massecuite. (iii) Development of bigger and maximum number of sugar crystals in the massecuite (RAB).

(3) CRYSTALLIZERS:
The function of the crystallizers is to keep the RAB (thick slurry of cane juice boiled into boiling pan to about 90 Brix) a little moving into vessel so that (i) it may not settle (ii) it may not form crust on the surface (iii) While cooling,it may form sugar crystals.(iv) Sugar crystals may develop bigger., The central shaft with four jaws arranged at 90 angle revolves very slowly at 3 RPM thereby keeping the mass a little moving inside the crystallizer. Seeding & cutting technique is the latest development for crystallization process. So battery of crystallizers are required.

(4) CENTRIFUGAL MACHINE:
This is a batch type machine which separates sugar and molasses by centrifugal action.Liquid molasses pass through very small holes of the screen fixed on periphery,while sugar crystals bigger than the holes of the screen,cannot pass through it.Hence sugar is retained inside the screen. These sugar is retained inside the screen.These sugar crystals are washed by water or steam sprinkling.Sugar is then dried under the sun and molasses is reboiled for jaggery making.

NOTE:-
(1) Since this process is scientific,there are many parameters of juice,syrup and jaggery, which have to be rigidly controlled at various stages to obtain good quality. We provide these process details to the entrepreneur at the time of onplant training.We also provide full technical support for the first season at nominal charges.
(2) This plant can be easily run by contracting both skilled and unskilled workers.First contract, feeding contract,includes feeding the cane to crusher,removing bagasse,drying it in open yard and feeding to furnaces, and other operations requiring no special skill.Other contract,boiling contract, includes operations of settling & filter plants, boiling of juice,production of sugar and jaggery, its drying and packing etc.Both of these contracts can be linked to actual production achieved.