A multi-product company with two sugar mills, a downstream distillery, a cement plant and an engineering division, KCP was initially a sick sugar unit (cap. : 600 tpd). It was taken over by the late Velagapudi Ramakrishna in 1941. The merger of Challapalli Sugars - a BIFR company - with it in 1988 and expansions have increased its sugar capacity tenfold to 6300 tpd over the last five decades. The cement factory, set up in 1958, was the first dry process plant in India. The engineering division was set up in 1955 as an in-house venture to manufacture sugar machinery required by the company. Manufacture of machinery required for cement, chemicals, steel castings, etc, were later added to this division. Both the cement and engineering divisions have been accredited with the ISO 9002 and ISO 9001 certification respectively in 1994. KCP hived off its sugar and industrial alcohol business, which was transferred to a new company, KCP Sugar Industries Corporation. The Company also undertook a joint venture with Vantech Industries for the manufacture of specialised insecticides. KCP promoted FCB-KCP, a joint venture with FCB, France, in a 40:40 equity participation. The new company is to manufacture and supply state-of-the-art machinery and technology to clients in the sugar industry both in India and abroad. The cement unit of the company continues to retain the ISO 9001 certification while the engineering unit was accredited to use the symbol 'S' and 'U' of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for the manufacture and assembly of power boilers and pressure vessels, respectively on 15 May'96. KCP has also received the Certificate of Merit for outstanding export performance during 1994-95 among Non-SSI exporters in industrial machinery panel for manufacture of sugar, paper, chemical, cement and pharmaceuticals. The company had set up 5 mini-hydel units aggreagting 8.25 MW capacity in the Guntur branch canal of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam. Electricity generated in this unit is wheeled to the cement unit for use. During 2001-02 the company entered into an agreement with Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation Limited(APTRANSCO) for wheeling the generated energy at Hydel stations to the cement plant with a wheeling charge of 2% fixed for a period of 20 years.