After gaining a considerable market share in the FMCG market space, self-styled Yoga guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved is planning to diversify its business, this time into the solar power equipment manufacturing.
"Getting into solar is in line with the swadeshi movement. With solar, each household in India can have power supply, and we are here to make that happen," Acharya Balkrishna, managing director of Patanjali Ayurved told Mint in an interview.
Since its inception, Patanjali is cashing in on the "natural" or ayurvedic and 'swadeshi' label to scale up its business. The company was set up in 2006, has been a success story now, as it has grown at a dramatic pace, with revenue touching Rs 10,561 crore as of March 31, 2017, from Rs 2,006 crore in 2014-15.
Patanjali's decision to foray into solar power equipment manufacturing space comes when the central government is considering a 30 percent capital subsidy as part of a new solar manufacturing policy, reported the business daily.
"The government has been working on the solar industry, and even offering sops. We will manufacture solar panels in India without compromising the quality. But we are not going to get into the price war with the Chinese solar panels," Balkrishna explained.
The government has also proposed a scheme—"rent a roof", with an aim to support its ambitious plan of generating 40 gigawatts (GW) of solar power by 2022.
Earlier this year, the firm acquired a navigation aid equipment manufacturing company, Advance Navigation and Solar Technologies. Baba Ramdev backed Patanjali plans to invest around Rs100 crore in solar equipment manufacturing.
For manufacturing solar equipment, the firm has already chosen a factory unit in Greater Noida, it is expected to be functional in next three to four months, reported the business daily.
"This started with our plan to use solar as a source of power at all our factories. That time we understood (that) most of the solar modules come from China. And there was no quality consistency even in India-made ones. We started with making solar modules for our captive use initially and then decided to utilize existing capacity to manufacture solar modules and sell in the market. This unit is at a nascent stage at the moment," Balkrishna said.
