The Hindu Business Line : Kannan Devan targets turnover of Rs 130 cr

Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company Pvt Ltd, a new model business enterprise in the plantation sector with involvement of all employees as partners, has targeted a turnover of Rs 130 crore in the current financial year as against Rs 105 crore achieved in the last fiscal.

The company after an year of its formation has achieved a pre-tax profit of Rs 5.31 crore by the end of October this year and is likely to touch Rs 8.31 crore by the end of this fiscal, said the company Chairman, Mr Joy Joseph, and Managing Director, Mr T.V. Alexander. If the new wage notification against which a case before the Kerala High Court is implemented, the profit will come down, they added.

productivity

Speaking to presspersons from Kochi, they pointed out that productivity of the company had consistently gone up after the employees took over in April 2005. Earlier, the average productivity of a worker was about 28-30 kg, which had gone up to 38 kg in March this year. It further went up to 46 kg till the end of November.

The company has also received the biggest export order in this fiscal by bagging a 35 million kg order worth Rs 21 crore from four countries such as Kenya, the UK, Iran and US. The export order last year was only 6 lakh kg.

There were also proposals to raise substantial revenues from non-tea operations, including cultivation of medicinal plants, horticulture and plantation tourism in the coming years. These initiatives would be kick-started as soon as the much-awaited notification of the State Government permitting use of about 5 per cent of the plantation land for other permitted non-tea use is released, they said.

Re-plantation

It had also started re-plantation of 70 hectares, as most of the teas were more than 80-85 years old. Every year 2 per cent of re-plantation will be carried out and the Tea Board is providing 25 per cent subsidy for replanting.

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