Ashish Beriwal in Calcutta on Friday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Jan. 5: SRMB Udyog, the city-based construction steel maker of TMT bars, plans to more than double capacity in the next 15 months.

The company is setting up a new unit in Durgapur at an investment of Rs 50 crore.

SRMB has acquired 10 acres in Durgapur and expects to start production in July-August 2007 with 1.5 lakh-tonne capacity.

SRMB’s existing capacity to make structural shapes and TMT bars is 1.5 lakh tonne.

The company is the first TMT bar manufacturer in the secondary steel sector. The primary players are Tata Steel and SAIL. It has three manufacturing units at Paharpur, Durgapur and Dankuni. The new Durgapur plant will be adjacent to its existing facility.

Apart from the greenfield unit, SRMB is also tying up with Indian companies for contract manufacturing.

Ashish Beriwal, director of the company, said there are two such pilot projects.

It has entered into a firm buy-back arrangement with a unit at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. The plant has a capacity of 60,000 tonne. The unit has already started production.

It has also tied up with a production unit at Kodarma in Jharkhand. This has a capacity of 40,000 tonne.

Beriwal said the model would be replicated in other parts of the country, if the pilot is successful.

“We are looking for at least one arrangement each in north, south and west. In fact, we are close to signing such an arrangement with an unit in Gujarat,” he said at a media meet today.

The strategy is to get closer to the consumer by cutting down on the lead times.