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Kochi, May 25 The Chairman Emeritus of the RPG Group, Mr Rama Prasad Goenka, on Sunday inaugurated the ‘accelerated replanting and factory modernisation programme’ at Mooply Valley Group of Estates in Kerala’s Thrissur district. The Mooply Valley Group of Estates is part of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd, an RPG group company.

The replanting and modernisation programme is expected to be completed at a cost of Rs 56 crore. Harrisons Malayalam, with a 150-year tradition in the plantations sector, is one of the largest grower/manufacturer of rubber in India, besides interest in pineapple, passion fruit, spices, tissue culture and engineering. The company is already a major exporter of both rubber and tea, a press release issued here has said.

In its rubber plantations, the company plans to invest over Rs 37 crore towards modernisation of its factory as well as in field operations. The two centrifuge latex factories and two crumb rubber factories are slated for major overhauling to make them internationally competitive over the next two years. An accelerated replanting programme is being implemented over a period of four years to phase out old generation clones and poor yielding fields.

Close to 1,800 hectares comprising over 35 per cent of its current area under tapping have been immediately earmarked for the programme wherein existing clones would be replaced by new clones including the RRII 400 series that was recently released by the Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottayam.

As a result of these measures, the company is confident of increasing its productivity to record levels within the next few years. India, with its 1,800 kg/ha productivity, is on top in rubber productivity in the world and the company hopes to leverage its strength in plantation management to top-up these figures.

In tea, a massive infilling programme is being chalked out involving planting of 65 lakh plants over the next three years. This would involve an outlay of over Rs 15 crore. Harrisons Malayalam tea fetches one of the highest prices in the market, the release said.

The company exported 4.5 million kg of tea last fiscal, making it one of the top producer exporters in the country. A regular winner of the Golden Leaf India Awards, the company hopes to double its export in the next two years. With this in mind, Harrisons Malayalam is embarking on enhancing orthodox tea manufacturing facility by another five million kg with an investment of around Rs 4 crore. The company is also one of the largest producers of orthodox tea.

Investment of this scale would be the first by any plantation major in the State and is expected to create a large employment opportunity in rural Kerala.

More Stories on : Modernisation | Plantations | Kerala | Rubber | Tea

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Harrisons Malayalam earmarks Rs 56 cr for tea, rubber

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