Coimbatore began its innings with white sugar over 100 years ago. The Rajaram Mohan Roy of South India, S.P.Narasimhalu Naidu founded the first sugar company in this part of the country. Good quality sugar was made in the mill but due to various reasons he quit the business. The sugar mill at Podanur was owned by Rao Bahadur A.T.Thiruvengadasamy Mudaliar and M.M.Sambanda Mudaliar (Chairman - Coimbatore Municipality) was also involved in the venture for a few years.
Coimbatore began its innings with white sugar over 100 years ago. The Rajaram Mohan Roy of South India, S.P.Narasimhalu Naidu founded the first sugar company in this part of the country. Good quality sugar was made in the mill but due to various reasons he quit the business. The sugar mill at Podanur was owned by Rao Bahadur A.T.Thiruvengadasamy Mudaliar and M.M.Sambanda Mudaliar (Chairman - Coimbatore Municipality) was also involved in the venture for a few years.
Environmentalist Perur K.Jayaraman recalls, "Our family used to sell our sugarcane to the Chithoor Co - operative Sugar Mills over 50 years ago. A number of people from the district were involved were involved with the Amaravathi Co-operative Sugar Mills Limited for a number of years. Sakthi Sugars, Jeypore Sugar Company, Bannari Amman Sugars and Rajshree Sugars were always managed by the industrialists from this region. The availability of sugar cane, the existence of the Sugarcane Breeding Institute and the Tamilnadu Agricultural University motivated a number of people to become sugar technologists those days. Both the above institutions have rendered yeoman service to the country."
The Numero Uno Sugar Technologist of Tamilnadu A.P.Chinnaswamy was born to Ramathal and Ponnuswamy at Angalakurichi village in Pollachi Taluk. He did his schooling at Udumalpet and went on to do his B.Sc Chemistry at Loyola College in Chennai. APC did his chemical engineering at AC Tech in Chennai and went on to do his Diploma in Sugar Technology (1961 - 1963) after joining the National Sugar Institute. He was the brightest student in his batch and after a brief stint at the Amaravathi Co-operative Sugar Mills, he joined the Salem Co-operative Sugar Mills as the Deputy Chief Chemist in the sixties of the last century.
At Salem, he was instrumental in introducing continuous centrifugals, conversion of excising batch crystallisers into continuous ones and subsequently introducing vertical crystallisers for low grade Massecuites. He did commendable work in the industry for several decades. APC visited a number of sugar mills and research institutes connected with sugar around the world during his long and chequered career. Over the years A.P.Chinnaswamy had presented more than 50 technical papers in ISSCT, STAI, DSTA and SISSTA (South India Sugarcane & Sugar Technologists Association). He was the Founder Director of the Sugar Research Institute which was subsequently shifted to Vellore. A.P.Chinnaswamy was instrumental in starting refresher courses and training for various levels of officers at the institute.
A.P.Chinnaswamy was the Chief Sugar Technologist in the Directorate of all the co-operative sugar mills and he achieved a high level of technical efficiency during his times. This paved the way for others to follow. It was due to his advice that several North Indian sugar mills converted from Carbonation to Sulphitation. His friendly and amicable nature made him gel well with his colleagues and juniors. APC was quite close to a number of sugar technologists who included S.N.Gundu Rao, J.P.Mukherji, Dr.N.A.Ramiah and S.V.Parthasarathy.
He was ever friendly and at the same time very empathetic in conveying his views to others. APC was appointed as Sugar Technologist and he was treated equal to an IAS officer and on his retirement the position was abolished. It was an exclusive position that was created for him and had an office in Chennai. The then Chief Minister M.G.Ramachandran permitted him to visit private sugar mills and other Government owned sugar mills in our country for the purpose of conducting technical awareness. This goes on to prove that his knowledge was indispensable for everyone in the sugar sector. His hearing disability never came in the way of his performance for he was an amazingly intelligent person.
The wonderful sugar technologist was the President of SISSTA from 1985 to 1987. Thereafter he was nominated by the Government of India to the Technical Specification Committee in order to formulate the Standard Specification for 2500 TCD plants. It was during the year 1994 that he led a technical delegation from SISSTA to Mauritius to study the working of cogeneration plants.
This became a great break through and many sugar plants went in for cogeneration from then on. Post retirement, A.P.Chinnaswamy became a leading consultant for a number of sugar ventures in India. He was inducted as the Honourary Life Time Advisor to SISSTA in the year 2007 and he stayed on until 2010. Ashok Chakravarthy, the nephew of APC was a sugar industry person from the year 1984 until he retired in 2017.
A.P.Chinnaswamy had two elder brothers and they are Dr. Mylswamy and late Malaiappan. He got marrried to Jayalakshmi and the couple was blessed with Ushadevi, Shanthi and Jayanthi. The sugar technologist believed in gender equality and he practised it all his life. All the three of daughters carried the initials CJ - Chinnaswamy & Jayalakshmi. His dedication and love for his parents and the sugar industry was reflected in the name of his house which was known as Ponnuram Sugar House in Coimbatore.
APC was a technical leader in his field and many of his deputies and juniors as well went on to become extremely successful people in the field. They were successful both technically and administratively. This goes on to prove that A.P.Chinnaswamy was the technical pioneer in sugar. The sugar technologist A.P. Chinnaswamy's good work continues to yield rich dividends for the sugar sector.