The Rs 628-crore Andhra Paper Mills Ltd (APPM), part of the LN Bangur group, is on a repositioning drive for its brand ?Andhra? in the domestic and international markets.
With its proposed expansion plans, the company is targeting a turnover of Rs 900 crore by 2010 with brand ?Andhra? apart from capacity expansion and upgradation.
It hopes to fulfill 15% of the targeted turnover through exports to Sri Lanka, Middle East, Africa and South East Asian countries.
APPM has invested over Rs 635 crore for modernisation, expansion and upgradation of its pulping and paper making facilities in the past two years. It is now looking at pumping in another Rs 291 crore for setting up a new machinery line which would produce about 70,000 tonne paper. As part of this, Rs 50 crore has already been invested for a coal fire boiler;this will produce about five mega watt power, which will be supplied to Reliance.
Shreeyash Bangur, director, corporate, APPM said, ?The proposed machinery line is expected to be commissioned by the second quarter of next year. It will be used for manufacturing a new range of premium products of the pigmented variety used specially in magazines.??
APPM has also proposed to augment its capacity from 1,80,000 tonne to 2,50,000 tonne per annum due to growing demand for pulp and paper in the Asian market, which is growing at 8% per annum.
The company currently has two manufacturing units. While the mother plant is located in Rajahmundry, the other plant is at Kadiam. Incidentally, the Rajahmundry plant has the single largest pulping line in the country, with a capacity of 1,82,000 tonne per annum.
Among other expansion activities, the company has installed a chipper line as part of the mill development plan. This enables more homogenous chips that help produce quality pulp.
Meanwhile, APPM has supplied over 92 million seedlines in about 15,000 hectares across coastal Andhra Pradesh.
The company has initiated massive plantation on marginal and degraded farm lands to counter rising costs.
Besides, research on clonal development has resulted in introduction of high-yielding and disease-resistant clones for varied agro-climatic regions, revealed well placed sources in the company.