Calcutta, Oct. 31: RPG Enterprises flagship CESC Ltd has posted a 21 per cent rise in net profit for the quarter ended September 30 at Rs 69 crore compared with Rs 57 crore in the corresponding period a year ago.

The company’s revenue rose to Rs 697 crore, up from Rs 688 crore in the same period last year.

“We are clocking the highest plant load factor in the country at Budge Budge and that has helped,” CESC vice-chairman Sanjiv Goenka said.

The outlook for the rest of the year remains positive, Goenka added.

Meanwhile, the company is going full throttle with its new 250-megawatt Budge Budge III unit.

The work is set to start in December and is likely to be completed by the middle of 2009.

CESC’s new greenfield venture at Haldia is also on schedule. Out of 1,000 acres required for it, 500 acres have already been acquired. Goenka said the rest could be acquired within this fiscal.

The company plans to set up a 2,000-mw unit there at an estimated cost of Rs 8,000 crore.

It plans to set up two more projects — a 2,000-megawatt project in Jharkhand and a 1,000-megawatt plant in Orissa. Work is going on in this regard as well.

Separately, CESC is also going ahead with its plan to unlock value by developing idle real estate property.

Shares of CESC fell 2.95 per cent to Rs 308.75 on the Bombay Stock Exchange today.

Harrisons net dips

The net profit of Harrisons Malayalam Limited, an RPG group company, has decreased from Rs 61.53 crore in the second quarter of last fiscal to Rs 4.58 crore in the July-September quarter of 2006-07.

Net sales of the firm, however, increased to Rs 51.25 crore from Rs 36.96 crore during the same quarter last year.