Domestic Demand

 For identification of new products using molasses, their domestic demand is studied at first.

Amongst the possible applications of molasses, the only ones which are either imported or manufactured through other technological routes in India are

•  Glycerine

•   Lactic Acid

These products are also consumed in very small quantities because their imports as well as production in India is not much in India.

World Status

World Status of these products, in terms of the following parameters is studied:

•  Current world market size of these products.

•  Technology routes adopted and accessibility of these technologies.

Based on this study, it has been concluded that world market size of almost all these products is small and availability of technology also us a barrier.

Hence it may be concluded that development of new uses of molasses do not seem beneficial in India in the short term.

•  Areas considered for technological evaluation for an efficient utilization of molasses

           The areas which have ultimately been short listed for technological evaluation are:

•  Storage of Molasses

•   Alcohol production

Storage

Prior to decontrol, storage of molasses was considered a problem by the producer as well as the user industries. Therefore molasses was stored in kutcha pits or open brick lined pits. This resulted in a substantial loss of molasses due to seepage, overflow, etc. however after the decontrol, molasses is no more a low value by-product. It has now achieved a status of an important raw material. Hence both user and producer industries would automatically employ proper storage facilities for molasses.

For storage, details IS specifications have already been laid down which are discussed in the report.