HYDERABAD: State-owned National Textile Corporation (NTC) has announced its entry into the readymade garments business where the union textiles minister Kavuri Sambasiva Rao unveild the logo ‘Indian Republic’ in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Starting with the menswear range, NTC plans to launch 300 retailstores through franchise network by end of March 2015.
Aloke Banerjee, NTC’s marketing director said the corporation expects to spend about Rs125 crore towards the retail stores and some Rs 20 crore on advertisements during the next two years, expecting to earn revenues of about Rs 250-300 crore from the retail stores network which is expected provide direct employment to some 4,000 people.
NTC, which reported revenue of Rs 1,200 crore last fiscal, expects to earn revenue of Rs 1,400 crore this fiscal including about Rs 100 crore from exports.
The corporation plans to set up its first retain branded garments store in Hyderabad and then expand to cities like Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi, and then spread to about 90 tier-I and tier-II cities over the next couple of years.
NTC human resources director RK Sinha said the prices of the Indian Republic garments would be 30-40% cheaper compared to the competing brands and price range would start from Rs 399 and goes up to Rs 1,499.
Further, Sinha said NTC would invest about Rs 500 crore to set up its spinning and weaving composite unit in Andhra Pradesh and the company is currently scouting for suitable land of about 25 acres near Guntur and Eluru.
Minister Rao said in all AP was expected to receive about Rs 3,000 crore investments over the next one year or so. The ministy is set to approve 4-5 new textile parks in the state, which together have a potential to attract over Rs 2,000 crore of investments, apart from Rs 500 crore of investment by NTC.
NTC has spent Rs 1,500 crore on modernization of its 18 existing plants in the country and has also set up three new units in Hasan, Nagpur and Ahmadabad recently. With this, the total production capacity of NTC has now reached 7.5 lakh spindles and 700 looms.