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The Videocon Group will invest approximately Rs 150 crore in West Bengal in ramping up two of its manufacturing facilities here in the State.
The top brass of the group met the State Finance and Industry Minister Amit Mitra, at the State secretariat – Nabanna – this moring. They also spoke to Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, over the phone regarding the investments.
According to Anirudh Dhoot, Director, Videocon, Rs 50 crore is likely to be invested be towards the mobile phone assembly unit facility in the city (Salt Lake).
“There will be a sizeable investment in the unit, may be around Rs 50 crore,” he added.
Mobile Assembly Unit
New machinery and facility addition is expected with the plant becoming operational around October. It will have an annual capacity of 3 million devices. The existing facility in Salt Lake on the north eastern part of Kolkata currently manufactures LED TV sets for the company.
This will be the second mobile handset manufacturing facility for the company after Aurangabad one. The Aurangabad facility has an annual capacity of 3-4 million units.
“By Durga Puja the mobile manufacturing unit in Bengal should be operational. We will leverage the existing TV manufacturing facility in the city. At least 500 new jobs are expected to be created,” Dhoot said.
Coming under its kitchen appliances division, KIAL Ltd, Videocon forayed into the mobile manufacturing and assembling business some four years ago. It manufactures mobiles under the “Videocon” and “Sansui” brands.
Two years ago, it set up the Aurangabad facility for assembly of handsets. Since then, it has not been importing finished devices from China, Dhoot claimed.
“After we achieve a sizeable scale in manufacturing our own devices, we might look to do contract job for others,” he added.
North Bengal facility
Another Rs 100 crore will be spent in its Phulbari facilty in the Jalpaiguri district of the State. The facility located in North Bengal currently caters to computer peripherals and assembly of devices.
According to sources, around Rs 75 crore has already been invested in the facility.
The remaining amount will be added to expand the facility and include manufacturing of mobile accessories and peripherals like batteries, chargers, power-banks and so on.
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