Berger Paints opens AP plant at Hindupur

HYDERABAD: Berger Paints opened its water based paint manufacturing unit at Hindupur in Anantapur District, on Friday. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, formally inaugurated the plant.

The factory has an initial capacity of 80,000 tonne per annum. In the final phase, the factory will have a capacity of 3,20,000 tonne per annum.

Additionally, there will be a plant for the manufacture of 1,00,000 KL of emulsion, a key raw material, for which a provision already exists. The factory will be commissioned soon upon receipt of all clearances.

Berger India Group is also setting up a plastic packaging factory on the other side of the road. Another Berger factory is coming up in the Gollapuram Industrial Area, about 3 to 4 km from Hindupur site, for manufacture of 40,000 tonne of paint. Total investment in the Hindupur area by the Berger India Group will be close to `550 crore.

Abhijit Roy, MD & CEO, Berger Paints said 'The paint industry in India has registered a growth of one and half times of GDP over the years. This growth has been driven mainly by the organized sector in the decorative paints segment characterized by superior quality branded products and new technologies offering better value to customers.

There has been significant growth of water based coatings both for interior and exterior applications during the last 2 decades. This upsurge in demand has been specifically strong in the Southern region, which provided us the impetus to set up this new Water Based paints plant at Hindupur for catering to the requirements of this important region.'

Kuldeep Singh Dhingra, chairman, Berger Paints said, 'We are confident that this new plant, which is strategically located and well connected to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and Mumbai, will be able to fully meet the increasing demand for water based coatings in commercially important regions of India.'

The plant incorporates the latest, state of the art technology with pneumatically controlled powder handling with silos which ensures dust free environment, automated liquid transfer system or DCS, automated storage and retrieval system or ASRS for finished goods handling, fully automatic filling and cartooning machine system and robotic palletisation system.

The Hindupur plant is an energy efficient, zero discharge unit. It will have a 19 acres green belt. The Hindupur plant will join the company's other units to manufacture products such as Breathe Easy, a low VOC paint, Kool-N-Seal ' which saves up to 10 per cent electricity and reduces internal temperature by 5 to 7 degrees C and flame retardant interior coatings.

The Berger India units in Hindupur will also employ a large number of engineers and other technical professionals along with providing business opportunities to local vendors and ancillaries and employment opportunities to a large number of local people.