Date:22/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/22/stories/2007082255081800.htm

Business

Maharashtra Govt. signs MoUs for three mega projects

Staff Correspondent

Total investment will be Rs. 1,000 cr. in the next few years

— PHOTO: PAUL NORONHA

ATTRACTING INVESTMENTS: Vilasrao Deshmukh (right), Maharashtra Chief Minister, with Yash Birla, co-Chairman, Birla Cotsyn (India), at an MoU signing ceremony in Mumbai on Tuesday.

MUMBAI: In line with its stated policy of attracting industrial investments into the State and particularly in its backward areas, the Government of Maharashtra has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three companies to set up separate ‘mega projects.’ The total investment envisaged by the three companies will be around Rs. 1,000 crore in the next few years.

Birla Cotsyn (India), a Yash Birla Group company, will set up an integrated textile project in Malkapur in phases at an estimated cost of Rs. 315 crore. The company was earlier engaged in cotton ginning and pressing and spinning at its facilities in Khamgaon and Ghatanji. It is now in the project of implementing the integrated textile project at Malkapur and Khamgaon.

The expansion comprises an increase to 19,040 spindles for manufacture of synthetic yarn and 36,000 spindles for cotton yarn. The project will include the manufacture of open end rotor based cotton yarn with an installed capacity of 1,728 rotors and weaving of fabric with 114 looms. It will have a capacity to make 50,000 metres a day of finished cloth.

Speaking at the occasion, Yash Birla, Chairman of Yash Birla Group, said, “in later phases, the project will include processing of fabric and retail of garments, fabric and home textiles.”

ISMT (formerly Indian Seamless Metal Tubes) is expanding its existing seamless tube manufacturing facility at Baramati. The plant will make an additional three lakh tonnes annually of seamless tubes for the Indian market and with 30 per cent production slated for exports.

Precision Automation and Robotics India Ltd. (PARI) has signed an MoU to set up an ‘Automation City’ — a mega project to make high-technology solutions in the field of industrial robotics and manufacturing automation solutions. While production at the project will commence in September 2008, the company will be investing Rs. 250 crore over the next two years to set up the project.