HLL plans to be Rs 1,000 cr company by 2010

Kochi, Aug 22: Public sector Hindustan Latex Ltd (HLL) has set its target on becoming a Rs 1,000 crore company by 2010, company Chairman and Managing Director M Ayyappan said.

Talking to reporters here today, Mr Ayyappan said the company had registered a turnover of Rs 213 crore last year with a post-tax profit of Rs 22.65 crore.

The company is targeting a 60 per cent growth during 2006-07 with a turnover of Rs 350 crore, he said.

The public sector major, among the consistently profit-making Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in Kerala, was planning a major diversification into the health sector with the setting up 1,000 hospitals all over the country, catering to the reproductive health needs of the population, he said.

The first two of these hospitals had started functioning at Hyderabad and Kanpur earlier this year and one more was to be opened at Agra in a week's time, he said.

''The idea is to give quality care at affordable prices. To this end, a normal delivery at the hospital would cost only Rs 1,500 while a ceaserian section would cost Rs 3,500,'' Mr Ayyappan said.

Apart from submitting a proposal to the Planning Commission for upscaling the project, HLL will approach foreign funding agencies for this, he said.

He said Hindustan Latex Ltd would introduce an injectible contraceptive for women next month. About 50,000 vials of the contraceptive were being imported from a South African company.

Describing as ''positive'' the response to the female condom 'Confidom' introduced by the company recently in Bangalore and Kolkata, Mr Ayyappan said the Centre had placed an order for 5,00,000 lakh pieces of female condom would be distributed to sex workers through NGOs in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The company had acquired a manufacturing unit in the Kochi, EPZ to manufacture the female condoms, he said.

Stating that condom vending machines were also gaining in popularity, he added that 10,000 more of these machines would be installed this year. As many as 11,000 vending machines were installed last year in several parts of the country.

Mr Ayyappan revealed that he had suggested to the KSRTC to instal these vending machines in the state-run transport buses in Kerala.

UNI