Industry Focus

With wind power season coming to an end, Tamil Nadu has to depend upon hydel power to meet deficit. However, there too power generation when compared to last year is low by 25 %. Windpower target set for August 2009 had been around 1315 million unit while it could muster only 50% of it. A positive side to this story is water storage position is encouraging and TN has 2100 MW of hydro power potential.

Shree Subham Logistics Kalpataru Group plans 41 agri logistics parks across various states. In the first phase, it plans set up 11 parks – seven in Rajasthan and four in Gujarat with investments of around Rs.1500 million. These agri logistics parks will provide cold and dry storage, processing, packaging, weighing, testing and certification. A National Electronic platform may also be provide to help farmers market their products to large audience to get a better price.

According to Union Budget 2009, any expenditure to build and operate such facilities (other than land )  can be fully treated as deductions for tax. India is the second largest producer of fresh fruits and vegetables in the world, and the proposal is aimed at reducing wastage of perishables. Indian Cold Storage industry is estimated at USD 2.6 billion and this contains 88 % of surface storage and the rest in mobile storages. Currently, this has few players like Blue Star, Snowman, Crystal, Refcon, Carrier, Bulkani Deep Freeze, RK Foodland, Trans Cold Chain, Sensitech, Fresh & Healthy(Concor), Apollo Everest Kool Solutions, GATI (Kausar) and Tata Voltas.

Southern Agrifurane Industries to  modernize its distillery at Mundiyambakkam in Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu with an investment of Rs. 450 million. The project involves modernization/expansion of molasses based distillery from 20 KLPD to 50 KLPD to manufacture Extra Neutral Spirit (ENS). . The distillery will run for 330 days in a year.