Tata Chemicals (TCL) launches low-cost water purifiers targetting east India

Kolkata, Sep 1 (Calcutta Tube/IBNS): Tata Chemicals (TCL) on Wednesday introduced its range of low-cost water purifiers in eastern India saying it hopes to cross a countrywide sales target of a million units generating a revenue of Rs 75 crore by the end of the year.

With the lowest cost-per-litre ratio of just of 10 paise per litre, the $2.07 billion wing of the Tata Group targets the Tata Swach range of purifiers at a different demographic range than Eureka Forbes’ Aquaguard range said company officials at a press interaction.

“Our line-up begins at Rs 499 and goes up to Rs 999 so we are targeting a completely different market segment and we are happy to say the response has been very positive,” said a company official at a press conference here.

According to Sabaleel Nandy, Head – Water Purifier Business, TCL, the Swach range, introduced over 9 months ago in the western and Delhi region leads the low-cost water purifier market that has seen a plethora of new entrants in recent months.

The company also hopes to push the portable no-energy water purifier into rural markets in the coming months as part of its phased launch policy.

Developed in collaboration with several Tata companies and resulting in 14 patents being filed, the replaceable filter-based product uses low-cost natural ingredients and offers clean water to a family of five at Rs 30 per month said company execs.

R Mukundan, TCL Managing Director, said, “The bulb of the water purifier is made at our Haldia plant here so it brings me great joy to be able to introduce this product to West Bengal.”

Apart from the Haldia plant, which has an annual capacity of 1 million units, he also said that the firm plans to invest Rs 50 crore to set up a new water purifier-making plant with an annual capacity of 500,000 units which would commence by the end of this fiscal.

“We haven’t finalised the location of the plant yet, but since rice husk is the key raw material, the plant is likely to come up close to a rice producing belt,” said Mukundan.