AP Handicrafts pays 12.5% dividend to state govt

Indicating its sound financial health, the Andhra Pradesh Handicrafts Development Corporation Limited (APHDC) on Wednesday presented a cheque for Rs 18.80 lakh to chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy towards dividend for the 2005-06 financial year.

This dividend constitutes 12.5 per cent on the share capital of the state government. The corporation will soon present another cheque for Rs 6 lakh towards dividend to the textile ministry.

This is the third successive year that the corporation had declared dividends to the state and central governments after it made a turnaround from 1997-98, B Anjan Raju, chairman of APHDC, told mediapersons.

He said APHDC had achieved a sales turnover of Rs 43 crore and a net profit of Rs 1.5 crore during 2005-06 as compared with Rs 36 crore turnover and Rs 1.25-crore net profit in the previous year. Of the total sales turnover, Rs 13.19 crore came from the 66 exhibition-cum-sales organised in the 2005-06 fiscal, as against Rs 10.50 crore from 70 exhibitions in 2004-05.

On APHDC's expansion plans, Raju said the corporation, besides the two showrooms that are under construction at Kadapa and Khammam, had planned to open 6-7 more Lepakshi showrooms in the state and outside, within a year.

It proposes to open two showrooms at Hyderabad, and one each at Vizag, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai, he added. APHDC currently has 14 showrooms.