Daijiworld News Network – Mangalore (VM/AF)
Mangalore, May 17: The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (CAMPCO), a joint venture of Karnataka and Kerala has earned a net profit of Rs 21 crore in 2005-06. CAMPCO procured 3,65,000 quintals of arecanut amounting to Rs 280 crore and sold 4,30,000 quintals of worth Rs 345 crore during the year.
This was revealed by CAMPCO president S R Rangamurthy in a press meet here on Tuesday, May 16.
The chocolate unit at Puttur suffered a loss of Rs 3 crore, but the loss was less than that during 2004-05, when the unit saw a loss of Rs. 4.65 crore. Under-utilization of the factory's capacity was cited as the cause for this loss.
There was a lack of job work to manufacture enrobed and moulded chocolates and the factory was not able to utilise the crushing capacity of cocoa beans to the optimum level owing to shortage of cocoa beans. Currently, it was utilizing only half the crushing capacity. The factory's crushing capacity is 8,000 tonnes per annum, he informed.
Rangamurthy said CAMPCO bought 53,216 quintals of wet cocoa beans estimated at Rs. 11.12 crore and 3,564 quintals of dry beans estimated at Rs. 2.94 crore in 2005-06.
As many as 1,137 tonnes of finished products and 1,466 tonnes of semi-finished products were manufactured by the chocolate factory during the year. The factory earned an estimated Rs. 13.14 crore through sale of finished products which stood at 1,119.32 tonnes. The sale of semi-finished products stood at 1,490 tonnes at an estimated Rs. 23.31 crore. The factory also undertook crushing of cocoa beans supplied by other companies and procured Rs. 2.46 crore in terms of processing charge.
He further informed that the CAMPCO board has decided to lease out its copper sulphate manufacturing unit in Mangalore, owing to difficulty in managing the unit after making a payment of 16.32 per cent excise duty and 12.50 per cent VAT to the Government.
The company has planned to make use of the services of its chocolate marketing section to sell cashew supari all over India. It has already sold 5 quintals of cashew supari in the month of April, he said.
The cooperative has a total share amount of Rs 11,02,34,600. The deposits collected under various schemes from members stood at Rs 39.39 crore as on March 21.
Rangamurthy said that the major development step taken by CAMPCO was an agreement with Amul. As per the agreement, 1,200 tonnes of industrial chocolates will be given to Amul.