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Indian Lead to restart closed units soon

Indian Lead Ltd, the country's second largest lead producer, said on Thursday it will decide by the middle of July whether to reopen two recycling plants shut for lack of lead acid batteries, a key raw material.

The firm halted production at its plant in Calcutta a year ago. Its only other plant, at Thane, was shut last month.

The closures followed the poor availability of lead acid batteries, the firm's main raw material.

But new rules could change that, a company official said.

"A government ban on recycling lead batteries by unregistered units is expected to improve its availability for the organised sector firms like ILL," said P N Mago, general manager of the privately-run firm.

India's organised sector groups establishments registered with the registrar of companies, and are represented by a union, but unorganised units do not meet these yardsticks.

India's annual lead demand is estimated at about 170,000 tonnes but domestic production is only about 70,000 tonnes. Imports bridge the gap.

Mago said the new rules aim to control pollution by not allowing units not registered by the government as being environmentally safe to recycle lead batteries.

Mago said that Indian Lead would take a final decision on opening its plants in the second week of July.

The Calcutta plant has an annual capacity of 12,000 tonnes. The Thane unit's annual capacity was recently hiked to 13,500 tonnes from 12,000 tonnes.

"We can achieve a combined production of 14,000-15,000 tonnes after one year of restarting production at both the plants and produce at the full capacity after two years," Mago said.

Indian Lead produced 5,673 tonnes of lead in the year to March 2001, against 9,360 tonnes a year ago.

State-run Hindustan Zinc Ltd is India's largest lead producer, and the country's only primary producer of lead.

The two firms, along with about 20 other small recycling units, are the only companies registered by the government as having environmentally safe facilities.

About 25 to 30 per cent of India's total lead output is contributed by another 725 small lead recycling units in the unorganised sector, but are not registered by the government.

New rules

The government said in May that battery makers could sell new lead batteries only to customers who exchange them for old ones, except for makers of original equipment and bulk users.

Battery makers can now sell the used batteries only to lead recycling units registered by the government.

Traders say unregistered units were able to corner a large part of the old battery market by offering higher prices for old batteries -- which they could only do by evading taxes.

India has banned lead scrap imports on environmental grounds.

Hindustan Zinc Ltd has production capacity of 67,000 tonnes a year but problems tied to pollution have kept one unit, with a capacity of 22,000 tonnes, shut since August 1999.

Another runs about 10,000 tonnes below rated capacity.

HZL uses lead concentrate as raw material, has no recycling unit, and also produces zinc.

It produced 34,840 tonnes of lead in the year to March 2001, compared with 35,120 tonnes the previous year.

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