KOLKATA: Visa Steel Ltd is setting up an integrated steel plant in Chhattisgarh at an estimated cost of around Rs 1,000 crore.
Chairman Vishambhar Saran said the project is expected to be completed in the next five years.
“Initially, we would be setting up a one million tonne rolling mill, which would need an investment of around Rs 600 crore,” he said.
Saran said technical feasibility report for the project would be ready by this July.
“We would mainly manufacture long products there,” he said.
The plant would be set up over 150 acres, land for which has already been acquired.
“We will go for further expansion at a later stage,” he said.
Meanwhile, Visa Steel posted a profit after tax of Rs 43.15 crore during fiscal 2007-08, which is a 110% increase over the previous fiscal’s figure of Rs 20.52 crore.
Total revenue during the fiscal under review increased 27% to Rs 682.81 crore (Rs 537.93 crore).
Managing director Vishal Agarwal said the company’s board has recommended a dividend of 10% to shareholders.
“The growth in revenue and profits during the current fiscal, have been driven by better realisations across products such as pig iron, coke and ferro chrome combined with higher volume growth in the coke and ferro chrome operations,” Agarwal said.
He said that the company intends to remain a globally-competitive, world-class integrated steel producer in Orissa, with captive power generation and backward linkages for raw material.
The Visa Steel stock rose 1.86% to close at Rs 60.15 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
r_sumanta@dnaindia.net
