Aequs Koppal toy SEZ to be operational by March 2022

Aequs Group, which is coming up with an SEZ to set up manufacturing facilities in the Koppal toy cluster, said that the SEZ should be up and running by the end of this financial year. Aravind Melligeri, the chairman and CEO of Aequs told DH that three companies including Viscon Polymers Pvt. Ltd will use this facility.

"We will start manufacturing towards the end of the next quarter and start recruiting manpower from January," Melligeri told DH. "Our objective would be to hire people locally"

This cluster is visualised as India's first toy cluster. Aequs will be training manpower to make plastic and electronic toys.

Melligeri added that the litigation regarding the land on which the SEZ is coming up has not affected work. "There is no problem with the land we have acquired. We got it with legal approval from all bodies concerned. The matter has gone to court but we have nothing to do with it. It is not disrupting our work", said Melligeri.

The manufacturing facility will be spread across seven lakh square feet. Aequs has also invested over $200 million in the Koppal-Hubballi zone.

Farmers whose lands were sold to Aequs for the SEZ had moved court against agents alleging that their lands were sold to Aequs at a cheap price.

The company, which is also working on the Hubballi consumer durables manufacturing facility, said that it will be the first to manufacture there. Melligeri added that this will be operational by June 2022. About 400 acres of land has been acquired for the consumer durables SEZ.

"We already manufacture nonstick appliances, now we will enter the domestic appliances like the electric cooker and mixer grinders", he said.

Already in the consumer durables space, Aequs receives orders from Wonderchef, co-owned by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor and entrepreneur Ravi Saxena.

Aequs' aerospace facility in Belgavi is currently running at 60 per cent of its capacity, Melligeri said.

"The aviation sector will recover completely only by 2024 or 2025. During the pandemic, our utilisation has come down majorly because the aircraft manufacturers have decreased production. Airbus, for instance, which procures parts from our Belgavi facility brought down its production. But we have still been able to come to 60% of our utilisation majorly because the demand for single-aisle aircraft is back", he said.

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