Thaindian News

Chennai, Nov 16 (IANS) Giving a major push to its retail business, Essar Steel plans to set up one steel service centre in Kolkata, add over 250 Essar Hypermart outlets by the end of this fiscal - taking the total to over 775 - and start online sales soon, a senior company official said Tuesday.

“We will be setting up a steel service centre in Kolkata - fourth one of the company - to cut the steel coils sent from our factory as per customer’s requirement. The outlay will be around Rs.75 crore. We will be adding more retail outlets owned by franchisees,” Essar Hypermart CEO Girish Rao told reporters here.

Essar plans to sell around 1.6 million tonnes through the retail outlets this year as against 1.1 million tonnes sold last fiscal, he said.

“We will also outsource steel tubes made to our specifications to be retailed through our retail network. Currently, we are outsourcing long products as our mill makes only flat steel products,” Rao said.

He said the company will start online order placements and deliver the products directly at the customer’s doorstep.

According to Rao, the retail sales will get a further push in the years to come as the company is in the process of expanding its capacity by around six million tonnes to ten million tonnes per annum.

Adds K.Kadhiravan, vice president and head sales: “Our retail outlets are located near the consumption markets and targets small and medium enterprises in the auto, engineering fabrication and other sectors. At present steel markets are located away from the consumption spots forcing the buyers to incur freight cost.”

The company will be increasing the number of retail outlets by 14 in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to 58 by the end of this fiscal, he said.