Insecticides India plans to invest Rs 150 crore in the upcoming two years to expand it’s capacity, the company’s managing director Rajesh Aggarwal revealed on Sunday. The company plans to increase it’s capacity in Rajasthan and Gujarat using the invested capital and launch herbicide and insecticide products before Navratri, he noted.
In conversation with PTI, Aggarwal stated the company plans to invest about Rs 100 crore to set up a new plant at Sotanala in the Behror district of Rajasthan. He added, “Last week, we acquired 15-acre plant at Sotanala in Behror district. Lot of sheds are already there and we plan to manufacture agro-chemicals. We will invest about Rs 100 crore investment here in the next two years. The plant will be implemented in phases and the work might commence by year-end, he said adding this is a second plant in Rajasthan and the other one is located at Chopanki which is up and functioning.”
Talking about the expansion plans, Aggarwal added that the company will invest Rs 25 crore in the upcoming year to expand it’s SEZ plant in Dahej, Gujarat. The company plans to acquire the land for the same project by Diwali. He also said that it’s technical plants in Chopanki and Dahej will be consolidated using an investment of another Rs 25 crore by next year. The plants will be used to manufacture 8-9 “active ingredients”, he noted.
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“In total, we will invest Rs 150 crore in the next two years, and the investment will be from internal accruals and a loan of small amount,” Aggarwal stated. The insecticide company has two plants in Jammu and Kashmir, in addition to a R&D centre and a biological plant in Uttar Pradesh, the report noted.
Elaborating on the company’s new products, Aggarwal said, “The company will move out of old generic products and add new ones with value addition. Our new pipeline is very strong in most crops. We will introduce three herbicide and insecticide products in Q2.”
“Already, one herbicide 'Green Expert' was launched in the current month. In the current quarter, the company will launch another herbicide 'Opaque' for onion, while 'Nakshatra' for sugarcane. A new insecticide 'Supremo' for paddy, sugarcane and vegetables will also be launched,” he added.
The company recorded a 24 per cent fall in it’s consolidated net profit at Rs 29.14 crore for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, the report noted. Aggarwal attributed the decline in profits to the high inventory cost as a result of a rise in global prices of main raw materials. Estimating better results going ahead, he said, “ In the Q2, we will come out of this. We will achieve double-digit growth in topline and bottom line. Our performance will be better.”