Manikchand targets 15% mkt

Mineral water major Oxyrich from the Manikchand Group, plans to consolidate its hold on the western and northern region market by commissioning one plant each in Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

Manikchand Group is also planning to set up one more plant in Rajasthan by the end of this year.

These three plants are expected to increase Oxyrich's stake in Rs 1,800 crore national market for packged drinking water from current little less than 10 percent to between 14 per cent and 15 per cent said Balajith Shetty, Project Head, Manikchand Oxyrich.

Shetty told Business Standard, that in the western region Oxyrich enjoys a 15 per cent share and this is mainly because company the already has three of its bottling plants located in the western region in Maharashtra.

These three existing plants comprises Pune plant with 2.5 lakh bottles per day, Kolhapur plant with 40,000 bottles per day capacity and the third plant in Aurangabad with 25,000 bottles per day capacity. The western region market comprises almost 40 percent of the total national market for packaged drinking water.

For the northern belt market, mainly Delhi, Uttaranchal and part of Uttar Pradesh, the company had set up a bottling plant in Haridwar with 1.2 lakh bottles per day capacity almost two years ago but with increasing size of the market and demand for bottled water Manikchand Group decided to go aggressively for Delhi market and have one more plant for the northen belt located in Lucknow.

The company will commission its plant in Lucknow with 30,000 bottles per day capacity within next two months time.

The Lucknow plant will cater the demand in UP and neighbouring region, said Shetty.

The Rajasthan plant with 60,000 bottles per day capacity will come up by the end of current financial year.

The Ahmedabad plant will have capacity of 60,000 bottles per day and it will be commissioned in another two months time.

In all, three new plant one each in Ahmedabad, Rajasthan and in Lucknow will have an investment of between Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore.

The market for the packaged drinking water is growing at a phenomenal rate and its size is expected to touch Rs 2,200 crore from the present Rs 1,800 crore, by 2010.

The two new plants in the western region and existing plants in Maharashtra and the company's another largest plant in Bangalore with 2.5 lakh bottles per day is expected to give company an edge over its rivals in the segment.