HPC plans to make eight lakh tonne paper by 2013

Kolkata, Apr 22 (UNI) State owned Hindustan Paper Corporation Ltd plans to invest in a huge way to augment its production to 8,00,000 tonnes of newsprint by 2013 after serial profits in its subsidiaries.

Announcing the highest ever production of 3,27,857 tonnes, lower profit margin of Rs 133 crore, out of sale turnover of Rs 1137 crore, for 2007-08, HPC chairman-cum-managing director Raji Philip said expansion process of its subsidiaries was in progress.

A new unit at Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh would to be commssioned to make 3,00,000 tonnes peper per year by 2010.

He said nearly Rs 30,000 crores would be invested at Jagdispur unit for which 500 acres of land would be acquired from the UP governmnet and other agencies.

Mr Philip said though the paper industries were currently having low output and lower profit margin due to high cost of raw materials, the HPC would go ahead for higher and qualitative production as demands in home and overseas were increasing rapidly.

He said present investments and outputs were not sustainable for the paper industry, but at the same time "we have to look for an alternative way to be in the competitive market".

The HPC direcly managed its Assam's Nagaon Paper Mill (NPM) and Cachar Paper Mill (CPM) producing printing and writing paper and a subsidiary Hindustan Newsprint Limited in Kerala.

The NPM and CPM have registered the highest ever production of 211,746 tonnes against previous best of 2,10,015 tonnes. The NPM has gone past 100 per cent capacity utilisation mark for the eighth time in a row since commissioning in 1985, with an all time high output of 1,15,125 tonnes.

The HPC scaled new peak with highest ever production output and sales volume of 116111 tonnes, reporting year-end "zero" stock for the fifth successive year.

HPC achieved the highest ever combined production output of 3,27,857 tonnes and sale volume of 3,29,174 tonnes and sales turnover of Rs 1137 crore, exceeding 100 per cent capacity utilisation made for the sixth times in a row.

Mr Philip said profit margin, however, was at low side, Rs 133 crore, 11 per cent rise.

He said HPC so far paid dividend and deemed preference shares for accumulative quantum of Rs 60.40 crore since it wiped out of the accumulated losses with had touched rs 785 crore on March,1994.

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