The company, which recorded a Rs 100 crore turnover in 1998-99, is targeting a 25 per cent increase in the current fiscal, but financial gains from these plans will begin to accrue only from the year 2000 onwards, a senior company official said here on Thursday.

"We have received the license apporval from Madhya Pradesh government for setting up a beer brewery in the state and construction on the site will begin next year," director (marketing) of Mount Shivalik group Monish Bali said in an exclusive interview.

Bali said the company had also received a Letter of Intent (LoI) from the Bihar government for setting up yet another brewery in the state, but a final approval from the state government was still awaited.

Elaborating on MSIL's expansion plans, he said construction work on the50,000 hecto litre brewery in Madhya Pradesh will begin next year, and the company will invest over Rs 20 crore in the venture.

MSIL already has a technical arrangement with Stroh's for manufacturing and marketing its bottled beer in India from June onwards.

At present, the Mount Shivalik group has two beer brands - Thunderbolt and Golden Peacock - in the super-strong and regular segments, respectively.

The company claims 7 per share of the 6.2 crore cases Indian beer market, which is estimated to be worth a total of Rs 1,500 crore. The company sold 4.5 million beer cases in 1998-99.

Elaborating on the arrangement with Stroh's, Bali said MSIL would bottle the US company's beer at its production facility near Jaipur.

This facility has already been upgraded to meet the stringent quality standards stroh's maintains in its operartions world over, Bali said.

"We're all set to launch Stroh's bottled beer in early June in Rajasthan, Haryana and surrounding areas. The launch will become national in thenext four months," Bali said.

"Once the bottling venture gains ground, Mount Shivalik will consider manufacturing Stroh's in cans also," he said.

"But this will take some time to be finalised. First of all, the investment needed to package beer in cans is much higher than the bottling requirements," Bali said.

This could be in the range of Rs 10-20 crore, since all can requirements have to be fulfilled via imports.

"Besides, we'll need to sign a joint venture, possibly with equity participation, with Stroh's for the can venture," Bali said.

On the current tieup, Bali said that since it is a purely technical agreement, Stroh's has not invested in the bottling venture with MSIL at present.

"In fact, Mount Shivalik has spent about Rs 4 crore to upgrade and modernise its Jaipur brewery which will be bottling Stroh's beer," he said.

With an installed capacity of 50,000 hecto litres per annum, 25 per cent of the total production from this brewery would be Stroh's bottled beer from this month onwards,bali said.

Among the international beer brands present in India, Kingfisher and Foster's are the two major competitors for Stroh's at present.

In the Indian premium segment, Golden Peacock from MSIL and Royal Challenge are the other main competitors, while the strong beer category has MSIL's Thunderbolt competing with Hayward 5000.