Exide announces expansion plan

Exide Industries Ltd has announced a plan to expand its manufacturing facility at Haldia. It is one of the largest and the most integrated battery making centers in South-East Asia, and is self-sufficient. The expansion activity will include the ramping up of capacity on a 20 acre piece of land allotted by the Kolkata Port Trust authorities, and to build a Greenfield battery recycling plant with latest European technology on another piece of 20 acre land allotted by the Haldia Development Authority. Funded by the company’s internal reserves, the expansion plan will have the company incurring an expenditure of Rs.1100 crores in FY2018-19. The battery recycling plant would be set in collaboration with Italy’s Energitech Technologies and have a monthly capacity of 15,000 metric tonnes. It will add to the two lead recycling plants Exide operates at Pune and Bengaluru under Chloride Metals. The total monthly capacity will rise to 11,500 metric tonnes once the Haldia plant goes on stream. The expansion of existing plant for battery manufacture would include NickelCadmium batteries, a mega charging station and an additional battery manufacturing capacity. The Nickel-Cadmium batteries will be made in technical collaboration with Furukawa of Japan, and will find application in Bullet Trains, Metro Rail and other areas.