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Cocoa pod shells are the agro waste generated causing problem during the disposal. In the present study, possibility of utilizing the cocoa pod shells to release the reducing sugars has been explored. Hydrochloric acid hydrolysis assisted with autoclave was adopted to obtain reducing sugars. The one parameter at a time approach was implimented to screen the significant parameters influencing the hydrolysis among weight of cocoa pod shells, concentration of HCl and duration of autoclave. Parameters such as concentration of HCl and duration of autoclave were found to be significant. These parameters were chosen for the central composite design comprising of five levels using response surface methodology to optimize the hydrolysis process. At optimized condition of 54.15 minutes of autoclave treatment and 4.41% of HCl, 21.11 g/L of maximum reducing sugar was released. A second order polynomial equation was generated having a good fit with R2 of 0.84. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]