India’s hand sanitiser production capacity went up by a staggering 1,000 times to 30 lakh litres per day as sugar mills and ethanol distilleries with the help of Central and State governments rose to the occasion to meet the challenge posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier India was producing only 10 lakh litres of hand sanitiser per annum, used mainly in the hospitals, but keeping in view the crucial role of sanitiser in the fight against Covid-19, the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) coordinated with the industry and State governments to encourage sugar mills and distilleries to produce more sanitisers, said DFPD Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey at a media briefing on Tuesday. This resulted in over 900 distilleries and independent units getting permissions to produce hand sanitisers, leading to the country developing an installed capacity of 30 lakh litres per day in a short period of time, Pandey said.

Surplus exported

According to him, this year till May 31, around 3.9 crore litres of hand sanitiser was produced in the country. In view of surplus availability of sanitisers in the country, export has also been allowed earning tremendous amount of goodwill for the country, the DFPD Secretary said.

Dalmia Bharat Sugars & Industries (DBSIL) was among those firms that sprung to action on sanitiser front. The New Delhi-headquartered firm, with four sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, set up sanitiser manufacturing plants in three facilities at Sitapur (UP), Shajahanpur (UP) and Kolhapur (Maharashtra).

These three units have a combined capacity of 45,000 litres per day, said Deepak Kumar, CEO of DBSIL’s consumer business. 

SL Sharma, Executive Director of Uttam Sugar Mills, another UP-based sugar mill, said his firm has put up a plant that can produce 20,000 litres of hand sanitizers per day. “But at present, because of lower demand, we are producing only 5,000-6,000 litres per day,” he said.