Piramal Healthcare closes Thane plant

Plans to take advantage of the realty boom.

Piramal Healthcare, a Piramal group company, would formally close its Vitamin-A factory in adjoining Thane tomorrow.

The unit is sited on 40 acres and the company plans to take advantage of the realty boom in Thane.

The 106 employees have opted for a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), in preference to an offer for transfer to the company’s units in Mahad (Maharashtra) or Hyderabad.

A trade union leader, who did not want to be named, told Business Standard: “The management was quite clear in pursuing its agenda of closing down the plant and going in for realty development.” Piramal Healthcare sources declined to comment. They had taken over the plant in 1996-97 from Roche Ltd. The unit was begun by Roche in 1964.

Sources said the company would soon formally approach the Thane civic body to seek clearance for conversion of the land from industrial use to residential-cum-commercial.

The group has stake in Sunteck Piramal Realty, which is developing projects in the Bandra Kurla Complex and some other places in Mumbai. The group has a real estate fund called Indiareit, which manages Rs 1,900 crore in two domestic funds and an international fund. Recently, it raised Rs 400 crore for a new fund.