Murugappa Group to set up its 4th bicycle plant in Punjab

Murugappa group company TI-Cycles is setting up its fourth bicycle plant at an investment of Rs 95 crore to serve the north and eastern markets of the country, Vice-Chairman MM Murugappan said on Thursday.

"This new plant (to be set up) with an investment of about Rs 95 crore is coming up in Rajpura in Punjab. It will have capacity of 1.5 million units a year".

"Predominantly, it (the plant) will cater to the domestic market," Murugappan told reporters here. Commenting about expansion plans after declaring the annual performance of the company, he said the bicycle plant would become operational by next financial year.

He added: "It (the plant) would serve the north and eastern markets while the three plants - Chennai, Nasik, Noida - each having capacity of 1.5 million capacity would serve rest of the regions.

He said the company is trying to set up cycling communities in the backdrop of cycling becoming a preferred mode of transport. On the group firm Carborundum Universal's (CUMI) operation in China, he said the company is working to bring the entity back into profits.

Murugappa group firm Carborundum Universal forayed into China with the commissioning of two state-of-the-art plants for bonded abrasives.

"China is going through its own difficulties and we are still operating the plants in China. We are doing with couple of things - one we are not emphasising so much on the entire range of manufacturing.

"Second, we are emphasising more on marketing and also manufacturing specific products for other markets", he said.

"So, we are trying to get the plants to some form of profitability. At this point, it is not profitable", he said.

According to information available on CUMI website, the company has fully automated 2,000 tonnes organic and 1,000 tonnes vitrified facilities, designed to be fuel efficient, reducing manufacturing cost and maximising productivity.

To a query, Murugappa Group Director-Finance N Srinivasan said the market capitalisation of the company grew to Rs 30,974 crore in 2014-15 from Rs 20,502 crore registered during same period of previous year.