The Hindu Business Line : Saint-Gobain’s Rajasthan plant will be delayed by a year

Chennai, Oct. 4 Saint-Gobain Glass India’s new float glass plant in Rajasthan, which was to have gone on stream in the first quarter of 2010, will now come up a year later.

The company is waiting for the State Government to acquire all the land required for the project, before it begins construction on the plant. Much of the 150 acres required for the project have been acquired, according to the company.

The delay in the project has also coincided with the slowdown in the economy, especially in the real estate sector, which would have accounted for a bulk of the company’s production of float glass at the plant.

Mr B. Santhanam, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass India Ltd, says the plant with a capacity of three lakh tonnes of flat glass a year will begin production some time in 2011.

Saint-Gobain Glass India, a subsidiary of the French multinational Saint-Gobain, has taken advantage of the delay and the slowdown to prune the project cost.

The company had originally planned to spend Rs 1,000 crore on the new plant at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan, about 65 km from Delhi.

Mr Santhanam is confident that this will be pruned by at least 10 per cent.

“We will take advantage of this delay to drive down the capex for this plant. It is a good opportunity for us,” he told Business Line.

Saint-Gobain Glass India announced in June 2008 its investment in the Rajasthan plant, which would be the company’s second float glass unit in the country.

Access to North market

Its first investment, at Sriperumbudur to the west of Chennai, has a capacity of 1,500 tonnes a day of float glass.

The company signed an agreement with the Rajasthan Government in August 2008 for the project.

The company plans to create a world glass complex in Rajasthan, similar to the Chennai plant, to make a range of glass for architectural, automotive and solar industries.

The northern region accounts for a third of the company’s sales and the Bhiwadi plant would give it better access to this growing market.

The company hoped to nearly halve the cost of transporting glass (close to Rs 3,000 a tonne) from the Sriperumbudur facility to the northern markets.

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