Vibha Seed Group, a Hyderabad-based crop genetics and hybrid seed producer, is setting up a seed conditioning facility in the confines of one-million sft at Jedcherla in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh at an investment of Rs 125 crore.
The group, which currently has 40,000 acres under cotton, maize, sunflower, bajra and vegetable seed production in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has completed 50 per cent of the work on the project.
The plant, comprising six processing lines, will be commissioned by February 2009, P Vidya Sagar, chairman and managing director of Vibha Seeds, told mediapersons here on Monday.
Vibha at present has seven seed conditioning plants in the state with a total capacity of 18 tonne per day. The new facility will add a 60-tonne per day capacity, he said, adding the company raised 60 per cent of the funds for the expansion through debt and the rest from internal accruals.
Sagar said the company was poised to expand its commercial horizons globally to China, Australia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines, Ethiopia, Egypt and West Asian countries.
“We are in the first year of testing rice, sunflower and vegetable hybrid seeds in Bangladesh, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. It will take two to three years to understand how our products are behaving in those soils, before launching our full-fledged operations there either through joint ventures or partnerships,” he said.
The group posted a turnover of Rs 250 crore for the 2007-08 financial year. It projects revenues of Rs 600 crore for the current fiscal on the back of its capacity expansion and increasing Bt cotton and vegetable seeds business.