Tatas consolidates agri services
line
Business Standard — June 9,
2004
Tata Chemicals acquires assets of Rallis farm division
The Tata group has consolidated its agri services business
under one roof. The business is operated through group companies
Tata Chemicals’ Tata Kisan Kendras and Rallis India’s
Farm Management Services.
The group has now integrated Rallis Farm Management Services
with Tata Chemicals’ Tata Kisan Kendras with effect from
February.
Tata Chemicals has acquired the assets and employees of Rallis
Farm, which form part of its agri business initiative. The
Farm Management Services is a small division of Rallis India.
Prasad Menon, managing director of Tata Chemicals said, “The
integration of Rallis Farm Management enhances the company’s
association with farmers.”
TKK provides services right from the sowing stage to post-harvest
management and marketing of agricultural produce. The Kisan
Kendra project was a major group initiative in the agri business.
The command area of TKK covers Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and
Punjab. It has 316 centres and plans to increase it 500 this
year. The company is also looking at alliances with other
companies in agri-chemicals, seeds among others.
Rallis Farm Management centres are located at Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to assist farmers
in improving their cultivation practices.
Tata Chemicals is investing around Rs 250 crore towards capital
expenditure. Of which Rs 150 crore will be invested at its
fertiliser unit at Babrala through de-bottlenecking.
The company is awaiting approval from the government towards
debottlenecking its Babrala facility, which would increase
its capacity from 86,5000 tonne to 1.2 million tonne.
The company is setting up a dense soda ash plant at Mithapur
with an investment of Rs 25 crore, which would hike up its
capacity by 600 tonne from the current 800 tonne.
The company, as part of its strategy to expand the food additives
business, is test marketing Samundar cooking soda in Tamil
Nadu. The attempt is to brand the cooking soda market, similar
to the lines of salt.
Tata Chemicals was the first company to brand salt under
Tata Salt. Tata Salt, which currently has a market share of
over 30 per cent in the edible salt category, has also launched
Samundar crystal salt in the market
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