The Hindu Business Line : Caparo plans luxury bus facility near Chennai

Looking ahead
R&D centre to design and manufacture dies/tooling fixtures and testing rigs planned.
A consultancy services division for automotive and aerospace industry on cards.
Rs 40-cr facility to supply components to TAFE.

Bijoy Ghosh

Rs 1,000-cr investment: Lord Swraj Paul, founder and Chairman, Caparo Group, flanked by Mr David Doncaster, Director, Finance, Caparo Plc (right), and Mr Angad Paul,CEO, Caparo Group and Chairman, Caparo India, at a press conference in Chennai on Thursday. The group will put up a facility to manufacture “high-end luxury buses and special vehicles” near Chennai. —

Our Bureau

Chennai, Oct. 4 Caparo Vehicle Products, a unit of the Caparo group of Lord Swraj Paul, is planning to put up a facility “to manufacture high-end luxury buses and special vehicles” near Chennai. According to sources, this may require an investment of about Rs 80 crore. Also coming up at Chennai are an R&D centre “to design and manufacture dies/tooling fixtures and testing rigs, and offer product development and phototyping” and a consultancy services division for automotive and aerospace industry, the literature says.

At a press conference here today, Mr Angad Paul, CEO, Caparo Plc, and Chairman, Caparo India, said that the group would invest at least Rs 1,000 crore in Tamil Nadu.

But he stressed that the group would invest “whatever required to serve our customers” and the quantum of investments was not the point at all.

Other investments

It has already named two investments – Rs 400 crore at Sriperumbudur for setting up a stamping unit, the R&D centre and tool room, an aluminium foundry and a forging unit, and Rs 300 crore at Oragadam “for producing tubular parts for automotive and aerospace, automotive braking systems, fasteners, composite materials and testing.”

Mr Paul said that the two facilities looked to servicing a range of industries such as automotive, aerospace, and maritime. “We are modest people,” he said in a lighter vein, when asked if the committed and proposed investments were not modest, but said that the group would invest as much as required. “India does not grow from the amount of money that is coming in, but from who is bringing it in.”

The Sriperumbudur facility was inaugurated by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr M. Karunanidhi today, who said his government had so far signed 11 MoUs for industrial projects aggregating to investments worth about Rs 11,000 crore in the state. These would collectively provide employment to about 1.25 people. Seven more such MoUs are in the offing, he said.

Components unit

In addition, Caparo will invest about Rs 40 crore to set up a facility for supplying components to tractor maker TAFE. Mr Angad Paul said that the group had bought 20 acres of land at Neelakottai, near Madurai for that.

Answering a question, he said that he found no shortage of manpower in India, insisting that there were enough people to work – only the employers needed to invest in training them.

He said that the group would set up a technical college and many primary schools, (through the Ambika Paul Foundation) in Tamil Nadu.

More Stories on : HCV/LCV/Tractors | New Projects | Automobile Components

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