Chandigarh: Tata Chemicals Ltd has said that it will set up a Rs50 crore fertiliser plant at Babrala in Uttar Pradesh for manufacturing customised farm nutrient, keeping in mind the soil fertility of the local area.

Besides, the company would also invest Rs250-300 crore in setting up new fruits and vegetable distribution centres across major cities within next three years.

“We are setting up customised fertilisers manufacturing facility at Babrala in UP with a capacity of 20 tonne per hour which will cater to 14-15 villages surrounding this area,” Tata Chemicals Executive Vice-President Kapil Kumar Mehan saidon the sidelines of CII conference.

Claiming that it would be the first such plant in the country to provide customised fertilisers, he said that the main idea of having this facility is to provide balanced farm nutrient to farmers while keeping in mind the soil fertility of that area so as to maximise their returns and enhance the yield of the crops.

“The company had already spent Rs5 crore on carrying out a study of the soil of this particular region to find out the deficiencies in the soil fertility,” he said.

Hoping to launch customised fertilisers for kharif season of 2010, he said that the product, which is capable of increasing crop yield by 15-20%, would make available all the nutrients including NPK, sulphur, boron to the crop that are not sufficient in the soil. He said that the fertilisers would be suitable to wide range of crops such as wheat, rice sugarcane, maize etc.