CM lays foundation for Rs 1200 Cr PepsiCo plant

Hyderabad, Dec 21 (INN): Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy laid the ceremonial foundation stone for the largest manufacturing plant of beverages and snack maker PepsiCo Inc here on Saturday.

The plant is being set up with an investment of Rs 1,200 crore. This is the first tranche of Rs 33,000 crore investments that the company announced recently during the visit of its chairperson and chief executive officer Indra Nooyi to India. The amount will be deployed over the next six years.

The beverage plant will come up in Sri City, a special economic zone in Chittoor district, located on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. It will provide direct and indirect employment to 8,000 people, PepsiCo said.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister expressed happiness that the PepsiCo Inc has also decided to considerably increase its mango sourcing from Andhra Pradesh for its juice-based beverages which would benefit thousands of farmers from the State.

The Chief Minister also assured the industry that there would no power crisis in future. Attributing the power crisis last year to shortage of gas and coal, he said that steps have been taken to overcome the crisis and the Centre has been asked to enhance the gap supply to the State.

Listing out various measures being taken by the State Government to promote investments, he said that the State was able to attract investments worth nearly Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the recent past.

He said that the National Industrial Manufacturing Zones coming up in Chittoor, Medak and Ongole would attract investments of about Rs 30,000 crore and provide two lakh jobs each to the youth.

Kiran Kumar Reddy claimed that the agitations on both sides of the State did not affect investments. Further, he hoped that Andhra Pradesh would soon become an energy-surplus State.

'The Sri City plant will boost our production capacity and support the growing demand for PepsiCo India's beverage products in Andhra Pradesh and peninsular India,' said Shiv Shivakumar, chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd., the India unit of the world's second biggest beverage maker.

He described India as a high priority market for PepsiCo and said that there were tremendous opportunities to expand food and beverage business here in the coming years.

The Sri City plant will be completed in three phases. The first phase of the plant, with a capacity to handle 1.2 million litres per day, will be completed by the third or fourth quarter of FY15 at an investment of Rs 450 crore, Shivakumar said.

PepsiCo will invest Rs 400 crore in the second phase commencing in 2015, and the remaining amount in the third phase expected to begin in 2017. 'Andhra Pradesh is a large beverage market with robust demand through the year,' Shivakumar said.

PepsiCo India also announced its intention to make Andhra Pradesh a national hub for sourcing mango pulp for its soft drinks. It will source mango pulp from 60,000 farmers of Chittoor, Nellore and Prakasam districts of the state over the next six years.

Industries minister Dr J Geetha Reddy and other senior officials were also present on the occasion.