Lakshami Energy & Foods to invest Rs 100 crore

A Rs 100-crore expansion is under way for Lakshami Energy and Foods Ltd. The company, which started with rice processing, has now decided to foray into processing wheat.

Talking to Business Standard, a senior company official said a piece of land of 45 acres had been bought adjacent to the existing factory premises at Khamano in District Fatehgarh Sahib. About Rs 22 crore has been invested in wheat processing.

The machinery has been imported from Bueller of Germany, and Switzerland, and the plant will have a capacity of processing 300 tonnes of wheat per day. The wheat flour mill will be operational by June.

The second part of the expansion is investing about Rs 50 crore in the modernisation and expansion of rice processing. Although the state agriculture department wants to reduce land under rice cultivation, the increase in per hectare productivity would provide ample inputs for the rice-processing plant, said the official.

The company's operations are concentrated in processing non-basmati rice. Demand for non-basmati in the domestic market is huge and increasing. The expansion had been executed keeping in mind the growth in the domestic market only, the executive said.

"The machinery has been imported and the new plant will have a capacity of 250 tonnes per hour. We have imported machinery from Satake of Japan, Schmidt Segger of Germany, Cimbria of Denmark and Choretime bro CK International of the US," he said.

The company has also decided to add 50 trucks to the existing fleet of 50. "We need 400-500 trucks in the peak season and about 100 in the lean season; so it is a viable to own about 100 trucks of 25 tonnes each," said official.

The new rice processing unit will be commissioned by the end of January.

The expansion will also augment the capacity of rice bran oil and cattle feed substantially and Rs 10 cr will be invested in augmentation process.

Some part of the funds would also be utilised to strengthen the road network on the premises. New cement and concrete roads would be constructed to bear the load of heavy trucks, he added.