``The target will be rural and middle class buyers and our existing dealer network will help us in the endeavour. We have planned a September launch to cash in on the festival season,'' says Maharaja Appliances' managing director Harish Kumar, who plans to launch washing machines first.

The proposed Gurgaon plant will have an installed capacity of one lakh each for semi-automatic washing machines and water heaters, besides 24,000 cooking ranges, Kumar said. The company, which manufactures a range of products like irons, mixers and grinders, claims 18 per cent of the smallappliances market share at present.

``There will be three washing machine models of 5 kg, 3.5 kg and 4.5 kg with bubble wash operation,'' he said. These semi-automatic machines would be priced between Rs 5,000 and Rs 6,500, he said. Harish Kumar said three cooking range models of varying sizes would be launched with a maximum price of Rs 20,000 while water heaters would be available in four models.

``We will launch these products at very competitive prices, about 10 per cent cheaper than others, and plan to capture 10 per cent share of the washing machine market initially,'' he said.

Kumar said Rs 35 crore of the company's Rs 140 crore turnover target this fiscal should be accounted for by the white goods foray. In the last fiscal, Maharaja posted a Rs 85 crore turnover.