Janakpur Cigarette Factory plans to double production

Janakpur Cigarette Factory -- the state-owned factory -- has planned to double its production from next month.
"We are planning to sale Rs 50 million worth cigarette in this month," said the general manager Shyam Kumar Mahato. "Last month we sold cigarette worth Rs 30 million," said the general manager, who has been asppointed two months ago.
The factory established in 1965 has resumed its production from October after two months of closure due to lack of capital. It was producing 10 million sticks of cigarette some years back plunged into a serious financial and logistic crisis due to regular political bickering by the successive governments.
The state enterprises has a total of Rs 1 billion debt. "But we can rescue the factory that has 900 staff," Mahato, a Chartered Accountants, said, promising that he could turn the factory into a profitable enterprises.
However, there is a policy delema on government part as a high-level commission formed by the government to recommend the possible future of the state-owned enterprises of public enterprises (PEs) has categorically suggested to divest government shares from Janakpur Cigarette Factory, Hetauda Cement Industries, Nepal Housing Development Finance Company and Nepal Bank Ltd.
The commission had divided the PEs into six different groups based on their performance and asked the government to liquate four public enterprises and merge six others.
Once the largest tax payer to the government the cigarette factory has been selling only three brands -- Yak filter, Deurali and Gaida -- from its range of brands including Garud, Singh, Chuchura, Asha, Jwala, Laligurash and Sayapatri.
"We are starting t produce Laligurash brand as it still has a huge demand," he said, adding that the factory has around 35 per cent to 40 per cent market share in the total cigarette market.