Tatas consolidates agri services line

Tata Chemicals acquires assets of Rallis farm division

The Tata group has consolidated its agri services business under one roof. The business is operated through group companies Tata Chemicals' Tata Kisan Kendras and Rallis India's Farm Management Services.

The group has now integrated Rallis Farm Management Services with Tata Chemicals' Tata Kisan Kendras with effect from February.

Tata Chemicals has acquired the assets and employees of Rallis Farm, which form part of its agri business initiative. The Farm Management Services is a small division of Rallis India.

Prasad Menon, managing director of Tata Chemicals said, "The integration of Rallis Farm Management enhances the company's association with farmers."

TKK provides services right from the sowing stage to post-harvest management and marketing of agricultural produce. The Kisan Kendra project was a major group initiative in the agri business.

The command area of TKK covers Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. It has 316 centres and plans to increase it 500 this year. The company is also looking at alliances with other companies in agri-chemicals, seeds among others.

Rallis Farm Management centres are located at Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to assist farmers in improving their cultivation practices.

Tata Chemicals is investing around Rs 250 crore towards capital expenditure. Of which Rs 150 crore will be invested at its fertiliser unit at Babrala through de-bottlenecking.

The company is awaiting approval from the government towards debottlenecking its Babrala facility, which would increase its capacity from 86,5000 tonne to 1.2 million tonne.

The company is setting up a dense soda ash plant at Mithapur with an investment of Rs 25 crore, which would hike up its capacity by 600 tonne from the current 800 tonne.

The company, as part of its strategy to expand the food additives business, is test marketing Samundar cooking soda in Tamil Nadu. The attempt is to brand the cooking soda market, similar to the lines of salt.

Tata Chemicals was the first company to brand salt under Tata Salt. Tata Salt, which currently has a market share of over 30 per cent in the edible salt category, has also launched Samundar crystal salt in the market.