Guwahati, Dec. 21: PVC pipes major Skipper Ltd has set up a fully-automated plant here to tap the growing market in the Northeast, a move that comes a year after the company forayed into the region.
The Calcutta-headquartered company has, in the first phase, invested nearly Rs 10 crore in the plant at Rani, about 30km from the city. It was commissioned last week.
The plant, which will manufacture PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes both for the agriculture/irrigation and the construction (plumbing) sectors, has a capacity to manufacture 4,000 metric tonnes per annum.
"We have a market share of five per cent in the Northeast. With this plant, we look to scale this up to 20 per cent in about a year's time. The plant's operation would save about 10 to 15 per cent of our cost, which will be passed on to the customer," Devesh Bansal, director, Skipper Ltd, told reporters here today.
The company had forayed into the Northeast last year. "The response to our products has been very good, which is why we decided to strengthen our presence here," Bansal said. Skipper's PVC business has been registering 100 per cent growth and has already captured a significant share of the market in eastern India.
The company was set up in 1981."Now, we are looking at other markets. Earlier this year we have set up a plant in Ahmedabad. There is another coming up at Sikandrabad in UP by the yearend while by March, we move south to Hyderabad. So, we cover all the regions and once operations commence, we look to take the PVC production to 40,000MT per annum," he said.
The Indian PVC pipes and fittings market, growing at 7-8 per cent per annum, is pegged to be worth Rs 20,000 crore by 2019. The private retail PVC market in the Northeast is currently pegged at Rs 150 crore.
"We will be investing another Rs 20 crore in the Rani plant in the subsequent phases as part of our expansion drive," he said.
On the USP of Skipper, a Rs 1,400-crore turnover company, Bansal said, "At Skipper, we are constantly in pursuit of innovation and have dedicated our resources to expand our cutting-edge products and value added propositions to the rest of the country," Bansal said.
Given the real estate boom (construction sector) in the region during the past couple of years, there is much for Skipper to offer to its clients here. The other PVC-manufacturing plants of Skipper are located at Uluberia (West Bengal) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Skipper has also tied up with global giants such as the Japan-based Sekisui Chemical Company Ltd and the Netherlands-based Wavin group to bring world-class plumbing systems into the market.