L&T plans to ramp-up its existing units at Coimbatore

L&T plans to ramp-up its existing units at Coimbatore and Ahmednagar to cater to growing demand. "As of today, none of our capacities are under-utilised and if you look at future demand, naturally we need to plan for more capacities. We will increase the capacity of our Coimbatore and Ahmednagar facilities by end-this fiscal, he said. The company has filed 151 patent applications in FY 11 as against 128 in the previous year. It has filed a total of 688 patent applications since 2004. "Our design and development centre (SDDC) introduced a number of new products and variants of existing ones in control gear, power gear, industrial automation and building automation to meet the needs of discerning customers. The new products accounted for 41 per cent revenue in 2010-11," he said. The company is under tremendous pressure due to soaring prices of silver and copper. "Silver prices have almost doubled since September. We are still under pressure due to increasing prices of silver and copper," he said. Rising raw material costs, especially silver and copper, had forced the company to up prices of its products by around 4 per cent in January this year. The company requires 1,600-tonnes of copper and 30-tonnes of silver per annum. The company, however, has no plan to effect a further hike, he said.