Friday, December 13, 2013: Blue Star, which is a recognised name in air conditioning and commercial refrigeration products has plans to set up a manufacturing facility for room ACs in south India. The facility will come up either in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka. Reportedly, this plant will cut down the logistics cost of ACs, which are being transported from their facility in Himachal Pradesh at present.
C P Mukundan Menon, executive vice president, room AC division of Blue Star told mydigitalfc.com, “The south market accounts for 40 per cent of our sales and a facility in the region will bring down three per cent on the logistics cost to south.”
Commenting on the development, B Thiagarajan, executive director and president- AC&R products business, Blue Star said, “The excise duty holiday for manufacturing units in Himachal Pradesh will remain till 2014. Currently the plant in Himachal is producing three lakh units per year and by December 2015 the capacity utilisation will touch the optimum level of four lakh units, By then, we will have to look for a new facility and it makes sense to put up a facility in south India to cut logistics cost.”
It is being said that the new facility will initially manufacture half a million units and will need an investment of Rs 1500 millions.