GMR to set up fibre board plant in South

Hyderabad-based GMR Industries Limited is planning to set up a bagasse-based fibre board, laminate manufacturing plant as a value-addition proposition at one of its sugar plants in South India.

Disclosing this here today, R Ramakrishnan, joint managing director, GMR Industries, said the company was going for a 40,000-cubic feet capacity plant at an investment of about Rs 50 crore initially.

"Fibre board manufacturing gives ten times value-addition to bagasse and the product would be highly cost competitive when compared with plywood boards," he told Business Standard.

The move comes as part of the company's ongoing efforts to integrate sugar business with various related activities to achieve consistency in its profitability in the longer run.

This is a new initiative in the Indian context as bagasse has been used so far for co-generation besides paper manufacturing in the country.

"We have visited a couple of plants in Egypt, which are into bagasse-based fibre board manufacturing and they are producing the products that are comparable to boards made from any other material," he said.

These boards can be used in various applications, as any other material-based boards, including furniture as an effective substitute to wood. In terms of cost, the bagasse-based boards would be up to 60 per cent cheaper, he said.

"Except refining, the rest of the process is similar to that of other material-based boards. Austria has developed a unique refiner technology for manufacturing bagasse-based fibre boards and we are bringing that technology to build our plant," he said.

The company is proposing to achieve commercial operations of the proposed plant in 12-15 months. GMR has sugar mills in Andhra and Karnataka.