Ponni Sugars

Ponni Sugars is the brainchild of late S Viswanathan, affectionately referred to as SV by his friends & associates, a renowned industrialist of the South. SV was a lawyer-turned freedom fighter-turned industrialist of a unique genre. He was a close associate of late Jaya Prakash Narayan. He teamed up with Sri R Venkataraman, former President of India, to practise Law at Chennai. He joined in 1957 the House of Seshasayee, a Managing Agency firm of repute in that era. With the untimely death of Sri V Seshasayee, SV took on the mantle, and established in quick succession between 1958 and 1962 four industrial enterprises, namely, Seshasayee Industries Ltd, Neyveli Ceramics and Refractories Ltd, Simco Meters Ltd and Seshasayee Paper and Boards Ltd. He later established Ponni Sugars and Chemicals Ltd, SPB Projects and Consultancy Ltd, Esvin Advanced Technologies Ltd etc. The magnum opus of SV was the creation of Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd. He took total charge and responsibility from concept to commissioning of this pioneering venture. This was the first ever mill to produce, successfully, newsprint out of sugarcane bagasse anywhere in the world and it received the acclaim of World Bank. This continues to be one of the top profit performers for the Tamil Nadu Government. SV entered the sugar industry rather late in his illustrious career. Sugar was just incidental to his cherished goal. He despised the denudation of precious forest wealth in producing paper. He realised long before that for the longterm survival of paper industry, a strategic shift to a sustainable, viable alternative source of raw material was imperative. For this, he sought to create an interdependence, which he called a marriage, between paper and sugar industries to resolve the raw material shortage for paper industry, strengthen the viability of sugar industry and simultaneously preserve forest cover and protect environment for public good.