Ruia Outlines Dunlop India Plans at AGM

Dunlop India is planning to build a ten megawatt captive power plant at its manufacturing unit at Shahgunj in West Bengal. Pawan Kumar Ruia, chairman of Dunlop parent company the Ruia Group, Pawan Kumar Ruia, announced during the company’s annual general meeting that this Rs 500 million (£6.2 million) facility would be built during the next one to one and a half years.

The group has just begun work on a six megawatt captive power plant at a manufacturing site belonging to Falcon Tyres, a company acquired at the same time as Dunlop India in 2005, and as the company’s own requirements here are only 3.5 megawatts, it will sell the surplus electricity. The Shahgunj unit’s captive need is five megawatts.

Mr. Ruia also used the AGM as an opportunity to comment about the company’s Rs 4 billion (£49.47 million) greenfield tyre plant in Assam, Northeast India. “The detailed project report of the plant is complete. It will be an off-the-road plant with 50 tonne per day capacity,” he said, adding that factory work will be completed in the next one to two years.

Dunlop India is also looking at a technological tie up with a UK-based company for re-starting its aero tyre manufacturing division, which has been closed for almost a decade.