A natural extension from its tyre business - group company Ceat Ltd being one of the leading tyre makers in the country - the group plans to soon open its first experimental outlet in Sri Lanka. A chain of outlets is expected to be in place within the next 15 months.

The RPG group is currently giving its finishing touches to the feasibility study on opening such outlets in India. Jal Khodaiji, who till recently was the executive director-marketing at Ceat, will head the group's TBA operations. Group officials, however, remained tightlipped on the financial details of the TBA foray.

"Since tyres is a core business area for the RPG group, it does not mean that only the Ceat brand of tyreswill be available at these outlets. Ceat will have to fight it out with all its rival brands like in any other marketplace," they added.

TBA chains are money-spinners in the western markets, with retail giants such as Sears Roebuck grossing around $3 billion annually from TBA operations alone, the officials said, explaining the rationale behind such a foray.

The group, as part of a restructuring of its diversified businesses, has identified retail operations as one of the five core businesses - the others being power, communications, tyres and agri-business - with proposed investments of around Rs 300 crore over the next three years.

It has entered into three separate categories of retail outlets, called FoodWorld, MusicWorld and Health & Glow, and the number of outlets countrywide will increase to 45 by April-end.

The group has 25 FoodWorld outlets, with two more slated to be opened within the next few weeks, and seven Health & Glow outlets with two more being planned by April. The number ofMusicWorld outlets will also increase to five by April as three are planned for opening in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.

Group officials said the FoodWorld chain is currently grossing around Rs 10 crore per month on an average. They said that a `hub-and-spoke' approach to its expansion plan was essential for its success.

The group plans to increase the total number of retail outlets to 100 by the year 2000, and 170 within the next three years. The plan is to increase the number of FoodWorld outlets to 100 over the next three years, MusicWorld outlets to 25, and Health & Glow to 40.

The group has a technical assistance tie-up with Dairy Farm International, a subsidiary of the Jardine Matheson group, which manages a string of retail outlets in south-east Asia.

The RPG group had announced its intention to forge a joint venture with the Dairy Farm International, but the proposed arrangement has not been finalised yet.