American conglomerate Amway’s manufacturing facility in India, which will produce most of its products currently sold in the country, will become operational by the end of 2015.

The Rs 550-crore facility, the first fully-owned Amway plant in India, will come up at Nilakottai near Madurai in Tamil Nadu. The construction will start in a couple of months, a company spokesperson told Business Line .

At present, seven contract manufacturers produce about 97 per cent of the Amway products sold in India. And a majority of these were made by just one manufacturer, Sarvotham Care, Hyderabad.

In the last financial year, Amway India’s turnover was Rs 2,288 crore. More than a half of this came from the sale of the protein power Nutrilite. Tamil Nadu is the largest market for Amway products, closely followed by Andhra Pradesh. After a series of raids and seizures across Kerala in 2011, Amway halted its operations in Kerala.

The spokesperson said Amway had only 400 staff in India, while there are one million independent business owners ( direct sellers). The company is currently facing legal challenges in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

basheer.kpm@thehindu.co.in