Mumbai: Industrial explosives manufacturer Solar Industries India (SII) is planning to ramp up its manufacturing capacity and introduce new solutions for the defence sector to achieve revenue of Rs 3,300 crore by 2018-19. The Nagpur-headquartered company manufactures explosives and accessories for mining and infrastructure sectors.
"With Coal India setting a target of 1 billion tonne production by 2020, we see this as a huge opportunity for our mining explosives as we are their largest suppliers.
"Similarly, the government's focus on creating infrastructure will create a huge demand for our explosives and explosives accessories," the company's Chief Financial Officer Nilesh Panpalliya told PTI.
"This demand, along with our latest foray into the defence sector, gives us confidence that we will be able to achieve revenues of around Rs 3,300 crore by FY19," he said.
The company entered the defence sector four years ago and has set up India's first HMX plant in the private sector, a large composite propellant plant and facilities for producing other products like pyros and war heads.
The company plans to invest up to Rs 175 crore every year for the next three-four years to enhance its manufacturing capacity.
"India still depends largely on import of explosives for the defence sector. But the Defence Procurement Policy and 'Make in India' initiative have given more emphasis on private participation and we think we have the necessary components and solutions to meet the demand of the sector and reduce dependency on imports," he said.
The facility manufactures HMX and HMX-based compositions like Octol, Oma and Okfol for high explosive anti-tank ammunition and missiles like Akash, LR Sam, Invar and Konkur. SII currently has a manufacturing capacity of 50 MTPA of HMX, which it plans to enhance to 300 MTPA.
"Earlier we required less quantity of HMX, but now with the defence sector opening up, we will increase the capacity to 300 MTPA.
"Similarly, we will increase the capacity of all other defence related products and also introduce some new solutions," he said.
Currently, the company exports to more than 25 countries and has manufacturing facilities in Nigeria, Zambia and Turkey. It is now setting up plants in South Africa and Australia as well.
