As the agrochemical industry of the country growing at a fast pace, Insecticide India limited (IIl), has already invested over `200 crore towards expansion and is now focused on improving the overall capacity utilisation of all its plants.
Expecting the demand for advanced agrochemicals to surge, company now has entered into research & development (R&D) in a joint venture with Japan Based Otsuka AgriTechno.
While talking to the The Pioneer, IIl’s Managing Director, Rajesh Aggarwal said, “We have already invested over `200 crore towards expansion which now in the completion stage. Going ahead, we would be more focused to raise our capacity utilisation of the plants and then in the next phase would plan to set up another facility.”
Recently, IIl commissioned its new technical synthesis plant and research and development centre at Dahej which is currently running at 50 per cent utilisation while the rest of its plants have already achied 70- 80 per cent capacity utilisation. “Our first target is to improve Dahej plant’s utilisation to 80 per cent mark and once that is achieved, we plan to expand further in our Dahej compound,” Aggarwal said.
When asked about what kind of expansion the company plans to do in Dahej facility, Aggarwal replied, “We have a large campus at Dahej and we are planning to set up another manufacturing facility there.” The expansion plan is still in the initial stages but the company would start working on it once the capacity utilisation targets have been achieved, Aggarwal added.
On the R&D front, IIl is now heavily focusing on research to develop new indigenous molecules that can be patented. Company recently partnered with Japanese major Otsuka AgriTechno Co. ltd (OAT) to set up a joint venture for R&D of new agrochemical molecules is a step in that direction. Under this partnership, the company has set up a state-of-the-art research centre in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan. The new R&D facility has an objective of inventing 4-5 agrochemical molecules in next 5 years for international requirements.
Along with that the company also plans of launching new products manufactured by IIl them selves. “In this year, we plan to launch three to four new technical which have been created by IIl,” Aggarwal said.
While talking about growth targets, he stressed that by the end of financial year 2014 (FY14), IIl would register double digit growth in its net turnover. “We have set a target of 35 per cent growth in our revenue this fiscal and have similar target for the FY15 as well.”