Nandan plans IPO for bio-diesel

Nandan Biomatrix Ltd, a Hyderabad-based company dealing with medicinal plants and bio-fuel, plans to tap the capital market by 2008 to expand its bio-fuel business.

The company intended to raise about Rs 150 crore through the initial public offering, said Chiranjib Sur, project associate, Nandan Biomatrix, on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the CII on Tuesday.

The company has embarked upon an ambitious plan to invest about Rs 400 crore in the next two years in setting up transesertification plants for oil-extraction in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Each plant would require an investment of around Rs 200 crore, said Sur.

"We are looking for land somewhere in Orissa and Bengal border," he added.

Apart from IPO, the company would raise funds by way of foreign-funding, said Sur.

According to him, Dubai-based, Istithmar Group has committed to invest Rs 250 crore in the company. Last fiscal, the turnover of the company was close to Rs 99 crore.

At present, the company has one transesertification plant in Andhra Pradesh. For jatropha cultivation, the company has identified around 2 lakh hectares of fallow land in Andhra Pradesh and about 100 acre in UP.

The company is keen in initiating jatropha cultivation over 2,000 acre land in Purulia, Birbhum and Bankura districts of West Bengal.

"We are not looking at starting jatropha cultivation in our own land as we have done in Andhra Pradesh, because the state government is not co-operating us in giving fallow land. In such a situation, we are persuading the farmers to take up the cultivation in their own lands. We will pay them at the rate of Rs 6 per kg of jatropha after two years, when it matures," said Sur.