LAKHIMPUR KHERI In an extraordinary feat of heavy-haul engineering and cross-state coordination, a mammoth 240-wheel trailer carrying a 110-ft-long, 26-ft-wide reactor from Belgium rolled into Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri district on Wednesday, nearing the finish line of a gruelling six-month road journey across four states.
The giant vessel—a cyclisation reactor—is the centrepiece of India’s first integrated sugar-to-bioplastic (Polylactic Acid, or PLA) plant being set up at Balrampur Chini Mills in Kumbhi village in UP’s Kheri district. Along every leg of the journey, district administrations coordinated with the Public Works Department (PWD), local municipalities, forest officials, and electricity boards to temporarily dismantle highway signboards and clear overhead bottlenecks. Escorted by police personnel, three red-flagged pilot vehicles and a 40-member technical crew tasked with lifting overhead power cables and pruning roadside trees, the convoy was stationed at Chhauchh village along National Highway 730A on Wednesday before making its final push to Kumbhi on Thursday morning.
Months before the vessel even left Odisha’s Paradip Port, engineers conducted an exhaustive route survey through Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh to identify choke points.
