Sugarcane plays a very vital role in this agro based economy by providing sugar, the main sweetener used in India. With the growing demand for sugar, the emphasis has been on increasing sugar production. Sugar industry gives a very important by product-molasses, which is gainfully converted into alcohol, an important raw material for organic chemicals and polymer industry. Molasses is further used for manufacturing industrial alcohol, potable alcohol and other chemicals.
Bagasse is used for co-generation of power and paper manufacturing.
At present, there are 115 sugar mills operational in the State of Uttar Pradesh. Molasses Production of Molasses in India vis a vis State of Uttar Pradesh has been as under during last 6 years. As already mentioned above, industrial alcohol, potable alcohol, baker's yeast, oxalic yeast, citric acid, mono sodium glutamate, lysin, ephedrine and cattle feed are the main products which are derived from molasses. There are 41 distilleries in the State of Uttar Pradesh with a capacity of 722.42 million liters. Acetic Acid Vinyl acetate, PTA, cellulose acetate, acetic esters, chloro acetic acid etc.