Birla Expansion to Add Radial Capacity

India’s Business Standard newspaper has reported on plans for Kesoram Industries to invest Rs 8.4 billion (£103.4 million) expanding its Birla Tyre factory in the northern state of Uttarakhand. Plans for the facility include a radial tyre plant with a 100 ton per day capacity, to be built with a capital outlay of Rs 4.95 billion (£60.9 million) and a 125 ton per day capacity truck and agricultural vehicle bias tyre factory, to be built with an investment of Rs 3.45 billion (£42.5 million). The expansion has an anticipated completion date of December 2009.

Kesoram is already in the process of setting up an Rs 7.5 billion greenfield project for bias tyres in Uttarakhand. The plant will have a capacity of 257 tons a day. The first phase of commercial production is slated to go on-stream in May 2008 and the last phase by December 2009. The complete expansion would bring Birla Tyre’s total tyre capacity at 734 tons a day.