Amrit Banaspati to set up paper unit

Amrit Banaspati Company Limited (ABCL) is planning to set up a greenfield paper manufacturing unit at an investment of Rs 550 crore.

This will be an important development in the domestic paper industry as the last greenfield paper production facility came more than a decade ago.

Since then, all the expansions have come from brownfield projects, as the environmental norms are stringent. Moreover, there is shortage of raw materials, particularly pulp.

"We are planning to invest Rs 550 in the greenfield unit with a capacity to produce one lakh tonne paper annually. The new unit should come up by 2010-11", said NK Bajaj, chairman of ABCL.

The location of the new unit is yet to be finalised but it will be in any of the north Indian states. The new unit will use agro-based raw materials for manufacturing paper.

"The per capita paper consumption in the country is expected to go up from 7 kg to 15 kg by 2015 and the domestic paper industry needs to expand in a big way so that we don't need to import paper, when the demand rises," said Bajaj.

The company has also undertaken a brownfield expansion at its Hoshiarpur (Punjab) paper unit, where the capacity will be increased from 48,000 tonne to 75,000 tonne.

The expansion is being done at an investment of Rs 125 crore and will be completed by 2007. ABCL is well-known for its vanaspati brand Gagan.

The company has also diversified into real estate in the national capital region and also has its presence in dairy business. The dairy business is catering to McDonald's in India among others.

"Reliance Retail has also shown interest in buying milk from us for their retail outlets. We are also in a position to manufacture milk under the private labels of other companies", said Bajaj.