Ponni Sugars (Erode) Limited was incorporated in December 1996 in the name of SPB Sugars and Chemicals Ltd and later in 2000 to the present name of 'Ponni Sugars Erode Limited'. The Company is the brainchild of late S Viswanathan, affectionately referred to as SV by his friends & associates, a renowned industrialist of the South. It has a sugar factory at Erode having a capacity to crush 3500 tonnes of sugarcane per day and generate 19 MW of power.
The Company is an offspring of Ponni Sugars and Chemicals Ltd (PSCL) under a Demerger Scheme sanctioned by the Hon'ble High Court of Madras on 10th September 2001. The Erode Sugar Mill Undertaking of erstwhile Ponni Sugars and Chemicals Ltd was transferred to the Company through the Scheme of Arrangement in 2001, which became effective from April 01, 1999.
The Erode Sugar Mill was set up with 1250 TCD capacity in 1984 in a record time of 12 months. It achieved full capacity crushing during the very first year of its commercial operation that enabled declaration of a maiden dividend of 10% in that very first year, a record in the annals of sugar industry. It was a trendsetter in mobilising surplus cane during its infancy stage from neighbouring sugar mills and extending crushing season to well above industry average. Its capacity was expanded to 2500 TCD in 1994 and to 3500 TCD in 2012. It commissioned a 19MW Cogeneration Plant in 2012.
The Erode Sugar Mill implemented an innovative Lift Irrigation Scheme by bringing in dry lands under cane cultivation, utilizing the effluent discharge of the neighbouring paper mill. This helped it to secure multitudinal benefits - providing a dependable and perennial source of irrigation to farmers in the neighbourhood, increase of land value manifold in the region, transforming the livelihood of local rural population, resolving the raw material needs of sugar and paper mills and addressing ecological concerns in effluent discharge.
Right at its inception, Ponni was structured on the concept of total diversion of bagasse for paper. For this, it installed a coal fired boiler in place of conventional bagasse fired boiler and sold its entire bagasse production through arrangement with Seshasayee Paper and Boards Limited. Later, in 2012 it installed a state-of-the-art multi fuel boiler for cogeneration of power wherein it uses disparate species of bio-fuel as an eco-friendly measure, keeping coal consumption to the bare minimum.
The Ethanol Plant is housed within the sugar mill complex, by virtue of which the Company was one of the early movers to conceive
a 45 KLPD Distillery-cum-ethanol plant in June 2019, which is to be commissioned as yet.