Hyderabad-based crop protection products manufacturer, Coromandel International Limited, today said the expansion of its Kakinada manufacturing plant (C-Train) project in Andhra Pradesh was well on track and was likely to be commissioned in the third quarter of the current financial year.
The company’s manufacturing facility at Kakinada currently has a capacity to produce 1.5 million tonne of complex fertilisers. Post the expansion, which is being executed with an investment of Rs 350 crore, the capacity will touch 1.9 million tonne a year.
Speaking to mediapersons after announcing the Q2 results here on Monday, Coromandel International managing director Kapil Mehan said their synthetic pyrethroids plant at Dahej in Gujarat had been approved by the Sabero Organic’s board.
Coromandel had acquired the promoters’ stake in Sabero Organics Gujarat Limited, an agrochemical manufacturer headquartered in Mumbai in May 2011. Sabero is currently implementing the SEZ project in Dahej.
“Acquisition of 50 acre for our single-super phosphate (SSP) plant at Bathinda is in progress. Being set up with an investment of Rs 120 crore, the facility will have a capacity of 264,000 tonne a year. We have already signed an MoU with Hindustan Mittal Energy Limited for supply of sulphur. In about 15 months post obtaining environmental clearances, we will start work on the project,” Mehan said.
Replying to a query on the Centre striking down the proposal to raise urea prices, he said there was a strong rationale for raising urea prices. “At some point, the government needs to put urea under NBS (nutrient-based subsidy),” he added.
To open more ‘Mana Gromor’ stores
Mehan said the company had revitalised ‘Mana Gromor’, a chain of outlets that sell all kinds of agricultural inputs to farmers, and was planning to make it a 1,000-outlet network across Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the next two to three years. Coromandel currently operates 640 Mana Gromor stores.
“Last year the number of stores stood at 420 and almost 80% are profitable. The remaining will take time as this business involves long gestation periods. We believe that the rest of the outlets should return to profitability in two to three years from now,” he added.
