Bharat Flooring and Tiles to set up heritage tiles plant in Gujarat

By Correspondent, Ahmedabad

Over nine decade old company Bharat Flooring and Tiles, an expert in making heritage tiles which it has fitted in historic buildings like Mahatma Gandhi’s Mumbai residence Mani Bhavan and iconic BMC (the Mumbai municipal corporation building) during their renovation as well as in the residences of modern day celebrities like tinsel town star Kangna Ranaut, Lara Dutta and Alia Bhatt, today announced to set up a tiles plant in Gujarat.

Addressing a press conference here Mr Firdaus Variava, the vice president of the company established in 1922 to check the monopoly of the Britain imported tiles in colonial India of that time with the help of freedom fighters, said that the Gujarat plant to be set up at an estimated cost of 25 to 30 crores would be functional in a year’s time. It will have a capacity of one to two lakh square ft of tile production per month.

The company, which produces the cement made heritage tiles manually, has currently two plants with a total capacity of around one lakh square ft in Palghar of neighbouring Maharashtra.

Mr Variava said that the Gujarat plant will most likely be located in Morbi district where they were planning to acquire one of the many closed cement units to start their plant.

‘We need around 200 workers for our plant who will be trained to produce the tiles through the seven step delicate manual method. We are also laying such tiles in some of the sites in Gujarat including a heritage building in Manek chowk area of old Ahmedabad. We have chosen Gujarat as our new plant site for many reasons. It is a good market for our product as there were a large number of old sprawling bungalows in the state. The ease of doing business is here and the artistic nature of Gujaratis can help us deal with the biggest problem of our sector; the lack of skilled work force,’ he said.

The company vice president said that they were also planning to open another plant as a joint venture with the Viridian Foundation in Delhi to cater properly to the increasing demand from northern parts of the country. ‘We currently have our business in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Delhi. We deal directly with the end users and provide customized products. The scope of heritage of pattern tiles in the country was huge as there were only a few players in the field but the demand was ever increasing. We have tied up with four reputed designers for our tiles,’ he informed.

– DeshGujarat