India - Bayer CropScience temporarily suspends operations at Gujarat plant after Pollution Control Board order

Bayer CropScience announced that its crop protection formulations plant at Himatnagar in Gujarat has been temporarily discontinued. The move comes after Gujarat Pollution Control Board directed for the closure of the plant after inspection by its officials.

In a stock exchange filing on December 13, the company said that it has complied with all the observations and submitted its compliance report to GPCB on December 1 with a request to revoke the directions.

The operations at Himatnagar plant have been temporarily discontinued with effect from December 12.

Bayer CropScience said it is pursuing all avenues to resume operations at the Himatnagar Plant as soon as possible. The discontinuation of the operations is temporary and would not impact continuity of business in the short term, the company said.

No monetary penalty has been impose by the Pollution Control Board of the state.

Bayer CropScience is involved in the agri-care business which mainly includes manufacture, sale and distribution of insecticides, fungicides herbicide and several other agrochemical products and corn seeds.

The company is also engaged in sale as well as distribution of hybrid seeds.

For the September quarter, the company's sales stood at Rs 1,451.9 crore, compared to Rs 1,365.1 crore during the same period last year.

At the Himatnagar site in North Gujarat, Bayer CropScience has five state-of-the-art formulation plants which is spread over 4.3 acres, and employs 104 full-time workers. The company has invested over ₹100 crore at the site.

The site commenced operations in 1991 with the production of Folidol dust formulations. Over the years, it has undergone significant changes with the introduction of new generation formulations like Suspension Concentrates (SC), Water dispersible granules (WG) and Oil dispersion (OD).

As of today, the site is a major exporter of WG products to various regions across the world.