Chandigarh, Nov 24 (IANS) Spray Engineering Devices Ltd (SEDL), maker of sugar manufacturing equipment, will invest Rs.2.5 billion (Rs.250 crore) to set up sugar mills and upgrading existing units in Punjab, a senior company official said here Monday.”We are aware of the urgent needs of the industry in this region and we are sure that there is a huge potential in the sugar market here. We have already invested Rs.30 crore (Rs.300 million) in Punjab, and we plan to invest a further Rs.250 crore here over the next three years,” Sanjay Gupta, SEDL’s finance director, told reporters.

SEDL opened its research and development office in Mohali district in Punjab, around 10 km from here Monday.

It already has branches at Noida in Uttar Pradesh, Panchkula in Haryana, Chennai, Pune, Secunderabad and Chandigarh.

According to Gupta, SEDL is also looking at production of bio-fuel, ethanol, from sugarcane.

“Even a traditional sugar unit creates by-products like biomass that is used for producing electricity in the mill. But the electricity produced is not sufficient and these mills still need to buy power,” he said.

“However, in a modern integrated sugar complex, the efficiency of production process is very high. The biomass not only produces enough electricity for the entire unit but also surplus power that can be sold.”