United Spirits to spend Rs 50cr for distillery expansion

Vijay Mallya-owned United Spirits is likely to invest around Rs 50 crore in West Bengal for expanding the capacity of its Asansol distillery.

"We have applied to the state excise department for expanding capacity of our Asansol distillery. This may cost between Rs 40-50 crore," USL Chief Operating Officer (East & Nepal) Kaushik Chatterjee told PTI here.

Apart from the Asansol facility, USL also has another distillery at Serampore. These two have a total manufacturing capacity of two lakh cases per month.

Chatterjee, however, declined to divulge what the total capacity of the Asansol distillery would be after expansion.

USL has 22 bottling plants in the East. Of these, five are company-owned. An additional two plants were likely to be added before the year-end in Kolkata and Assam, he said.

Chatterjee said the company expected a 30 per cent growth in volume in the current fiscal in the East alone. USL had recorded 15 per cent growth in total sales volume in the second quarter ended September 30, 2008 over the corresponding period last fiscal.

The company, which produces over 140 brands in different flavours, had sold around eight million cases in the last fiscal in the East, which, according to Chatterjee, should cross the 10-million mark by the end of this fiscal.