RPG to invest Rs 90,000-mn for expansion

Thrissur: The Kolkata-based RPG group would be investing Rs 9000 crore in the power, tyre and carbon black industries as part of its expansion programme in the coming two years, Chairman, Rama Prasad Goenka, said.

While Rs 6000 crore would be invested in the Calcutta Electric Supply Company in two years in the states of Jharkand, Orissa and West Bengal, the company would set apart Rs 2000 crore in the Ceat Tyres and Rs 1000 crore in the Philips Carbon Black ltd, Goenka told reporters at his rubber estate at the Harrisons Malayalam limited at nearby Mooply on Sunday.

He was in Thrissur to inaugurate the accelerated replanting and factory modernisation programme at the estate.

The large investment was necessitated to compete in the fields following the government's liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies, he said.

The group was aiming to increase productivity, quality and facilities to workers by the expansion, he added.

Replying to a query regarding the rs 5000 crore power project in Kannur, for which an MOU had been signed when K Karunakuran was the Chief Minister, Goenka said he was forced to drop the project following lack of interest shown by the succeding government.

Harrisons Malayalam ltd (HML) Managing Director, Pankaj Kapoor said the company would invest Rs 56 crore for modernisation of the estate in four years to replace the ‘poor yielding old generation clones with new clones’.

Over 630 hecatres had been earmarked for the replanting programme, he said.

The RPG group possessed 6000 hectares of rubber and tea estates in Kerala, which were acquired in 1989.
At present per hectare productivity in the rubber plantation was 1800 kg and it could be increased with efficient management, he added.

The company would plant tea saplings worth Rs 65 lakh as part of massive expansion programme in three years. With the export of 4.5 million kgs of tea last fiscal, the company was the top producer-exporter in the country, he said adding it was expecting to double tea export in next two years.