Bajaj Hindusthan

Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Limited (BHSL) was incorporated on 23rd November, 1931 under the name - The Hindusthan Sugar Mills Limited – on the initiative of Jamnalal Bajaj - a businessman, confidante, disciple and adopted son of Mahatma Gandhi. He sought Gandhiji's blessings in this new venture, which, apart from being a sound commercial proposition would also meet a national need. Till then, there were barely thirty sugar factories in the country. The site selected for the first plant was at Golagokarannath, district Lakhimpur Kheri in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh (UP), an area rich in sugar cane. The original capacity of the factory was 400 tons of cane crushed per day (TCD). Subsequently, this capacity was increased in stages and is currently 13,000 TCD. The distillery Unit at this plant commenced production during the end of World War II in 1944. In the initial few years, the major output was in the form of power alcohol as an additive to petrol, which was then in short supply. The unit was the first to supply alcohol-mixed petrol to the army. In 1967, a new Company - Sharda Sugar & Industries Limited - was established as a subsidiary of Hindusthan Sugar Mills Limited. Under this new subsidiary, a sugar plant with a cane crushing capacity of 1400 TCD was set up in 1972 at Palia Kalan, a large cane supplying centre at a distance of about 70 kilometres from Golagokarannath. The objective of this new Unit was primarily to help the cane growers of the area supply their produce to the new location closer to their fields, thereby cutting down on transportation costs. The capacity was subsequently increased in stages to reach the present 11,000 TCD.