Navayuga plans Rs 4cr shrimp processing unit at Bhubaneswar

Navayuga Exports Limited, a subsidiary of Hyderabad-based Navayuga Engineering Company, is planning to set up a shrimp processing plant at Bhubaneswar at an investment of about Rs 4 crore.

Navayuga Exports currently exports processed black tiger shrimp and semi precious stones.

"We are at present operating a 10-tonne per day capacity black tiger shrimp processing plant at Bhubaneswar, which was taken on a lease basis. Now, we plan to take another plant also with a capacity of 10-tonne per day on lease basis to meet our processing requirements," K Vijay Bhaskar, chief executive officer of Navayuga Exports, told Business Standard.

This apart, the company is also planning to set up its own processing plant with a capacity of 20 tonnes per day at Bhubaneswar, he added.

Navayuga Exports has been procuring black tiger shrimp from Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. The company procures 85 per cent of shrimp from Orissa, 10 per cent from Andhra Pradesh and the rest from West Bengal.

"We are supplying feed and seed to farmers of Orissa and so we are able to procure more shrimp from that state," Bhaskar said. "Our entire shrimp products are being exported through Visakhapatnam port," he added.

Navayuga also has leased mines in an extent of about 60 acres at Orissa to mine semi precious stones. Last year, the company's semi precious stones exports stood at Rs 3 crore, most of which were exported to the US.

"Due to new conditions imposed on mining by the Orissa government, we are not expecting much exports from our semi precious stones division this year," Bhaskar said.

In the fiscal ended March 31, 2005, the company's exports stood at Rs 57 crore (Rs 54 crore shrimps, and Rs 3 crore semi precious stones), as compared to Rs 48 crore (Rs 47 crore shrimps, and Rs 1 crore semi precious stones) in the last fiscal, registering a growth of about 19 per cent. "We expect to register a turnover of Rs 60 crore from shrimp exports in the current fiscal," he said.