Standard Glass opens new Hyderabad facility

Company eyes Rs 20-crore order book this year

Standard Glass Lining Technology Private Limited, a Hyderabad-based manufacturer of glass lined reactors, receivers, storage tanks and conical dryers for the pharmaceutical, fertiliser and chemical industries, is aiming at having an order book of Rs 20 crore for its glass lined reactors this financial year.

Launching the company’s first glass lined equipment here on Wednesday, Standard Glass managing director K Nageshwar Rao said the company had signed a non-exclusive agreement with the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI), Kolkata, for the technology.

“We started commercial production today. We have booked orders worth Rs 1 crore from pharma companies like Hetero, Natco and Laurus Labs, as on date, and will start billing from next month,” he said.

Set up with an investment of Rs 25 crore, Standard Glass' two units in Hyderabad have a combined installed glass lining capacity of 1.8 million litre a year to manufacture 50-55 equipment a month with sizes ranging from 63 litre to 16,000 litre.

The company plans to venture into manufacture of 30,000-litre capacity equipment in due course.

He said Standard Glass was the third company in India to manufacture glass lined equipment, with the other two being US-based GMM Pfaudler Limited and French firm De Deitrich, which have their facilities in Gujarat. According to Rao, the market requirement for glass lined equipment in India was currently pegged at 3,500 units a year.

CGCRI develops high-power fibre laser
CGCRI, a central government laboratory that provides facilities to enhance the quality of glass and ceramic products, is developing a high-power fibre laser technology, which will have wide-scale applications for the industry as well as the defence sector.

“The new technology can be used to develop defence laser weapons or for excavation of underground mines. We have already demonstrated a lab model (200 Watt) and expect to develop a 1,000-Watt model in the next two to three years,” CGCRI director Kamal Dasgupta told Business Standard.

Dasgupta said CGCRI was also developing bio-medical implants, based on special ceramics, primarily keeping in mind the Indian population.

The institute has started with the development of hip implants, the technology which had been sold to IFGL Bio Ceramics.

“We are working on increasing the life of the hip implants from the current 20-25 years to 30-35 years. Also, we will start developing finger implants and drug delivery systems in the coming year,” he added.