Ajanta Group shelves IPO, tourism projects

After having shelved its project to manufacture electric cars in 2008, Morbi-Based Ajanta Group, popularly known for making wall clocks, has now decided to drop its tourism project entailing an investment of Rs 210 crore.

Subsequently, Ajanta's plan to come out with an IPO also stands cancelled as the group wanted to raise money for partly financing this project.

"We had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government for taking up a tourism project with an investment of around Rs 210 crore. The project has been cancelled due to some legal hurdles and we have decided not to pursue this project anymore," said Jaysukhbhai Patel, Managing Director, Ajanta Group.

"We also considered a public issue for our tourism project and cement plant in Kutch but we have dropped IPO plans as well," he added.Sources privy to the development informed that the company wanted to raise Rs300-600 crore from primary market.However, the group is going ahead with its cement plant. It plans to set up a cement manufacturing plant with a capacity of around 15 million tones per annum in Kutch. Around Rs 1000 crore are estimated to be pumped in for this project in a phased manner. Ajanta expects to start work on the project by the end of 2010.Post cancellation of its tourism, Ajanta Group now wants to focus on its existing projects. The group is also working on a hydro power plant project in three places in Gujarat. It will invest about Rs 100 crore and work for first plant will be kicked-off by end of December this year.It may be mentioned here that Ajanta Group, which is also into electric bikes manufacturing, also had plans to make electric cars when Tata Motors announced its Nano car. Ajanta even imported electric car model from China but it shelved its electric car project in 2008.