Kaushik Chatterjee in Calcutta on Saturday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, May 10: United Spirits will invest Rs 40 crore to set up a grain-based distillery in Asansol.

With this captive unit, the spirits major will become self-sufficient and depend less on raw material such as molasses brought in from other states.

“The plant will take about a year to commence operations with a capacity of 28 kilolitres per day, which will be expanded in due course. We have already applied for the licence,” said Kaushik Chatterjee, chief operating officer (eastern region) of United Spirits.

Unites Spirits has 25 bottling plants in Bengal, of which five are company owned and the rest are joint ventures with local firms. It has three distilleries in the east — two in Bengal (Asansol and Sreerampore) and one in Orissa. There are plans to set up three more bottling units in Bengal.

“The market in the eastern region has been growing at 19 per cent for the last two years while the national average is 10 per cent. Last year, we increased our market share to 62 per cent from 56 ,” Chatterjee added.

Of the total sales volume of 73 million cases, the eastern and the northeastern region contributed around nine million cases.

Out of the 16 retail outlets in India, four are located in the east. “We have two in Calcutta and one each in Bihar and Orissa. We plan to add three to four such stores this year,” said Chatterjee.