Bikaji Foods International, which received the first tranche of the production-linked incentive (PLI) of nearly Rs 20 crore in March, expects the second tranche of around Rs 32 crore to come through later this year. The government has approved a total pay out of nearly Rs 261 crore to Bikaji Foods International under the PLI scheme.

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"For this, we have committed some investments, which will close by the end of this year. This is how we have built some capex and are in line with all the capex plan. We received the first tranche for FY22 in March, which was close to Rs 20 crore. We are hopeful of receiving another tranche of close to Rs 32 crore in this year," Rishabh Jain, the chief financial officer at Bikaji Foods International, told CNBC-TV18.

The Production-linked Incentive (PLI) scheme is a conventional and popular strategy used by the governments to boost the production of goods considered necessary for job creation, social welfare and taxation. PLIs are essentially financial incentives for manufacturing businesses to augment their output.

Bikaji Foods reported a strong set of earnings for the first quarter this fiscal. Both, its revenue and profits surged and margin expanded as well, aided by decline in palm oil prices. Its revenue increased by 15.1 percent to Rs 481.7 crore in the quarter ended June from the previous year's Rs 418.5 crore. Its net profit also increased from Rs 16.2 crore last year to Rs 41.6 crore in the first quarter this fiscal. The company's EBITDA increased to Rs 65.8 crore from Rs 30.79 crore in the same quarter last fiscal, and its margin gained to 13.6 percent from 7.3 percent in the previous fiscal.

Manoj Verma, Chief Operating Officer at Bikaji Foods International, said the company's EBITDA margin were above expectations. "We have done extremely well in terms of growth as well. Volume growths are more or less beyond what we expected," he said, adding that if volume is growing, it means the category is growing. And this time, the company's value and volume growth are in line, he said.

Verma said the first quarter can be divided into two for Bikaji Foods International. "The first half went extremely well, while the latter half could have been slightly better, in the backdrop of some pre-monsoon and heavy monsoon rain. But still, we delivered as per our guidance," he said.

Meanwhile, Jain said the capital utilisation of Bikaji Foods International was close to 40 to 41 percent by the end of the first quarter. "By the end of this year, we will have the same capitalisation, like around 43 to 44 percent. So largely, we had done capex ahead of time. We have capex of the next three to four years, and we also got the PLI scheme of nearly Rs 261 crore from the government," he said.

The company has also witnessed a growth in its market share. "Our growth is ahead of the category growth and we have grown to the extent of 200 basis points in certain states. In terms of Assam, it has moved up in Indian ethnic snacks to around 58 percent market share, Rajasthan has moved up to 47.5 percent and Bihar has moved up marginally by 40 basis points," Verma said.

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(Edited by : C H Unnikrishnan)