Birla Corporation Ltd. (BCL), an M.P. Birla Group company, will invest around ₹5,000 crore by fiscal 2025, to increase its cement capacity to 25 million tonnes from 15.5 million tonnes now.
Announcing this at a post AGM press meet, Sandip Ranjan Ghose, chief operating officer, and Pracheta Majumdar, chief management advisor, said that this phased investment would include a greenfield grinding unit in Bihar.
BCL chairman Harsh V. Lodha said that in 2018, the cement industry came out of its worst-ever cycle.
The capex financing would be through loans and internal accruals.
BCL saw a 66 % rise in profits in 2018-19 led by higher volumes.
Mr. Ghose said that in the initial phase ₹2,450 crore would be invested in an integrated cement plant at Mukutban near Nagpur, taking the capacity to 19.5 million tonnes.
Financial closure has been achieved for this project entailing a ₹1,525-crore loan.
This phase would also entail a third grinding line in Kundagunj near Lucknow and the expansion of clinker capacity to feed the third line. This was among the units acquired from Reliance Cement by BCL in 2016. The buy helped BCL expand its footprints. These projects would be completed by mid-2021.
The balance investment would be made in the second phase and include a grinding unit in Bihar. Mr. Ghose said Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh were growing markets .
Meanwhile, the 15-year old legal dispute over the will of the late Priyamvada Birla raised its head again after two members of the APL committee (Adminstrator Pedente Lite) appointed to protect and preserve her estate, decided not to support the re-election of Mr. Lodha as director of two M.P. Birla Group companies. They also decided to oppose a proposal for payment of performance- linked remuneration to non-executive directors /chairman, of the four group manufacturing companies. The decisions taken by the two members have been challenged by Mr. Lodha in the Calcutta High Court. He has contended that the administrators were appointed to the estate and not over any company, trust or society which are independent entities.
However, the court, in its interim order on August 2, directed that the voting results on certain resolutions of the other companies and on all the resolutions of BCL should not be published till further orders.
