HIL to up block-building capacity at Surat plant

At present, Rs 1,000-crore CK Birla Group company has 13 manufacturing plants across the country

Building material manufacturer, HIL Limited (formerly Hyderabad Industries Limited), is embarking on an expansion plan, which will see the company adding 100,000 cubic metre autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) block-building capacity to the existing 200,000 metre at its plant in Golan near Surat during the current financial year.

“We expect the expansion work to be completed in the next six months or so. This will take the total AAC blocks capacity at our Surat and Chennai factories to 420,000 cubic metre a year,” Abhaya Shankar, managing director of HIL, told mediapersons here on Wednesday.

The Rs 1,000-crore CK Birla Group company has 13 manufacturing plants across the country. It garners 80 per cent of its revenues from asbestos sheeting products, which it sells under the Charminar brand.

“While the asbestos product portfolio’s contribution to our revenues used to be 90 per cent four years ago, we are making efforts to bring it down 5 per cent each year so as to promote our non-asbestos, green-building material products,” he said, adding the company was planning to use the Charminar brand to push other building material products also.

Stating that the company had five wind mills in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu with a total generation capacity of 7.5 Mw, he said they were evaluating options to set up wind farms in Andhra and was awaiting some policy announcements by the state government.

Skill development
HIL Limited, in association with Andhra Pradesh-based NGO Shramika Educational Society, has kicked started a nationawide construction artisans employability initiative ‘Tarraki Ki Chhaon-Mein’ to create employment opportunities for the rural and economically weaker section.

It on Wednesday rolled out its first pilot project, enrolling 25 students from rural Andhra  for a 45-day course in Hyderabad. Trained students can look forward to start their career with an initial salary of between Rs 5,500 and Rs 7,000 per month and scale up to a level of Rs 15,000 a month within a span of 18-24 months.

“We are looking at enrolling 10 batches of students for this programme in the first year, including in Timmapur, Vijayawada, Warangal, Orissa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat,” said Sanjay Kavathalkar, vice president (human resource), HIL.