Praj Industries, yesterday announced receipt of a new order – this is for setting up India’s largest capacity syrup based ethanol plant from a Godavari Biorefineries Ltd (GBL) in Karnataka.

As a part of this project, Praj will expand the existing ethanol manufacturing capacity to 600 KLPD, using sugarcane syrup. When commissioned, this will become India’s largest capacity syrup based ethanol plant.

 The Government of India has made several strategic interventions by way of progressive policies, conducive financial mechanisms, to encourage the sugar sector to limit surplus sugar production and instead, produce more ethanol. This capacity expansion planned by GBL is in line with the Government’s Biofuel policy to increase the Ethanol manufacturing quantity in India using various sugary feed stocks.

The company, however, shared no financial details of this deal.

Apart from ethanol, the company is also betting big on bio-CNG of gas made from  organic waste, and waste-water treatment. Two weeks ago, the company received an order worth Rs 200 crore from Indian Oil Corp. for waste-water treatment earlier this year.

The company’s CEO is pretty gung-ho about bio-CNG and said that it has the potential to be as big as Rs 1.75 lakh crore.

The stock has reacted better today than yesterday, rising almost 6% to hit an intraday high at Rs.202.95, not too far from its 52-week high of Rs.207.45, which it had hit last week.