The Aditya Birla group flagship company is into final stages of finalising plant sites of aluminium beverages can and high pressure dye casting plant at Silvassa in Dadra Nagar Haveli or near Delhi, Hindalco Industries Ltd general manager (project planning) Anil Gupta said here. The company has planned an outlay of about Rs 200 to Rs 250 crore for the aluminium beverages can plant while that for the high pressure dye-casting a Rs 50 to Rs 100 crore is being earmarked.

Silvassa, which houses company's ally wheel plant, may be chosen for its tax benefits, Gupta said, adding "being a backward area, government has provided Silvassa strategic tax advantage while Delhi may be chosen for its proximity to large automobile market".

The ISO 9002 company, which has the largest aluminiumcomplex in the country, decided to go into other downstream and value-added products like aluminium foils and aluminium alloy wheels at their new facility at Silvassa, Gupta said adding, alloy wheel plant which was commissioned in September 1999 had started commercial production and the company plans to go in for aggressive marketing from the next fiscal.

With orders from General Motors and Ford India under its belt, Hindalco plans to produce three lakh alloy wheels annually which can be expanded to six lakh wheels per annum depending on the demand, he said. The Rs 411 million company has already invested Rs 60 crore in the Silvassa plant and had tied up with German aluminium alloy producer Stahlschimdt and Maiworm (S&M) for technical inputs, Gupta added.