The Hindu Business Line : Paharpur Industries to invest Rs 100 cr

Paharpur Industries Ltd (PIL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Paharpur Cooling Towers Ltd and manufacturers of a wide range of packaging products, said that it would be investing around Rs 100 crore over the next five years in acquiring new machinery and technology.

"We are in the process of investing in new technologies and machinery in an effort to bring in more relevant technologies to the retail trade as well as the export market. The company is working on a five year rolling plan to invest around Rs 80-Rs 100 crore to acquire new technologies and machineries starting with a coater laminator that would cost around Rs 20 crore," Mr Sujit Shome, Director, PIL, said.

Key Clients

The company is also on the look out to acquire package-manufacturing units in different parts of the country. The key clients include Hindustan Lever Ltd, ITC, Dabur, Mother Dairy, Asian Paints, Heinz, Bayer, Tata Tea, Eveready, Britannia, Novartis, Henkel and Perfetti amongst others.

PIL also has plans to ink partnerships in countries such as China, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe and the US for the acquisition of new machinery and technology in an attempt to increase its current domestic market share of 25 per cent in the specialised packaging solutions. The company estimates its market share in the Rs 1,500-crore domestic organised packaging solutions market to be around 7 per cent.

Competitive Solutions

On the technology front, while on one hand the company has already tied up with a Netherlands-based company Perfotec to provide competitive solutions for fresh produce, it has also allied with US-based Dow Chemicals and Toyo for food grade packaging inks. "Our expansion is going to be geared to meet the future needs of the Indian and overseas market demands," said Mr Debabrata Deb, Senior Vice-President in charge of Technology, Innovation and International Marketing, PIL.

The company had clocked a turnover of Rs 106 crore in 2005-06 and is aiming a turnover of around Rs 125 crore in 2006-07 and of around Rs 500 crore in the next five years.