The Hindu Business Line : TNPL plans IT park in Chennai

Coimbatore, Oct. 11 The Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd (TNPL) is planning to establish an IT park in Chennai and is weighing the option of doing it on its own or adopting the BLOT route, according to Mr Shaktikanta Das, State Industries Secretary and Chairman, TNPL.

The company is also planning to set up a mini cement plant using the lime sludge and fly ash generated by the paper factory.

Speaking at the AGM of the company at Chennai, the details of which are available in the NSE Web site, he said at the end of the last financial year, the company had zero stock of newsprint and printing and writing paper and this was the sixteenth year the company had achieved this distinction. TNPL was also in the process of implementing a mill development plan at an outlay of Rs 565 crore.

He said TNPL will increase paper production capacity from 2.65 lakh tonnes per annum (tpa) to 4 lakh tpa by adding a new paper machine in the existing site to make use of the surplus pulp and other infrastructure facilities.

Mini cement plant

Mr Das said as part of the lime sludge and fly ash management, TNPL would set up a 400 tonnes per day mini cement plant. The lime sludge and fly ash generated in the manufacture of paper would be converted into high grade cement. When implemented, this would be the first paper mill in the country to produce high grade cement using mill waste and the project would become operational from March 2009.

(The project cost was estimated at about Rs 50 crore. While TNPL would invest Rs 15 crore generated internally, the balance cost would be met through borrowings. The company expects to repay the loan in four years from the profit earned).

He said the company has taken steps to establish an IT park in the 63.5 grounds it owns at the Ambattur industrial estate. The feasibility of setting up the park on its own or through the Build, Lease, Operate and Transfer (BLOT) mode through developers/end users was being examined.

(The IT park would not be demerged or made into a separate entity and it would remain part of the company).

More Stories on : Infrastructure | Diversification | Paper | rd & Newsprint | Tamil Nadu

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