West Coast Paper Mills (WCPM), part of Bangur group is one of the leading player in the Indian Paper Industry. Apart from paper the company is also into manufacture & sale of Optical Fibre Cable and Jelly Filled Telephone cables. WCPM's Paper Division is located at Dandeli in Karnataka and Cable Division in Mysore, Karnataka. Further the company owns six windmills with an installed capacity of 1.75 MW in Tamil Nadu and mojority of this wind power is supplied to Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.

WCPM's paper division at Dandeli consists an paper mill with an installed capacity of 1.57 lakh MTPA and a 28 MW co-generation power plant. The product mix of WCPM's paper division includes writing,printing & packing paper. The company which has raised the paper capacity by 18000 tonnes per annum is presently engaged in further raising the paper capacity to 163750 tpa by FY 2002-03.

The Cable Division i.e Sudharshan Telecom came into existence in 1996 by setting up a plant to manufacture Optical Fibre Cable(OFC). Latter in 2001 the company created and deployed facility to produce Jelly Filled Telephone Cable(JFTC). Currently the cable division has an installed capacity to produce 83500 Kms of OFC and 1542000 Ckm of JFTC. Sumitomo Electric Industries of Japan and John Royale & Sons of USA are the technonolgy providers for Sudarshan Telecom. This state of the plant at Mysore is capable of producing armoured and aerial types of OFC in addition to the underground duct burial type cables with a fibre count upto 40 fibres.

Expansion, Modernisation and Diversification Programme for the Paper Division at Dandeli has been taken up with a cost of Rs.214.50 crores(of which 65% had been completed by the end of 2001-02).In 2000-2001 the company has ISO 9001 Certification from Det Norske Veritas,The Netherlands.

During last quarter of 2001-02 the new 33000 TPA Duplex Board Machine was commissioned by the company and the company looks forward to increase the market share in the duplex board segment in the near future.

During the year 2003-04, the Company completed its ongoing expansion programme for the the Paper Division at Dandeli in Karnataka at a cost of Rs.230.14 crores.

Subsidiaries

WCPM has two subsidiaries Speciality Coatings & Laminations Ltd(SPCL) is engaged in manufacture of Coated paper and paper boards i.e Chromo & Art Paper. SPCL's 15000 tpa plant is located at Gurgaon in Haryana. WCPM holds 65% stake in the equity of SPCL.

Bharat Sugars, which is taking steps for settting up a 1250 TCD sugar mill with 7.5 MW co-generation plant at Kesoralli village, Haliyal Taluka at a cost of Rs.48.47 Crores has become subsidiary of WCPM effective from Dec 3, 2002. No progress is achived in implementation of this Sugar project.

WCPM has executed a strategic acquisition of 59.79 % equity stake in Rama News Print on Sep 2003. This gives the Bangur group the much needed Econmic of Scale in the Indian Paper Industry.

The company came out with a Rs 5.33-cr rights issue at a premium of Rs 30 in Oct.'91 to part-finance a modernisation / renovation programme for technology upgradation, diversification and energy conservation.