Mumbai-headquartered Ceat has signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government for establishing a tyre manufacturing facility near Chennai at an investment of ₹4,000 crore.
The proposed facility is expected to come up at Madhuramangalam Village near Sriperumbudur, a popular manufacturing corridor.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami and Anand Goenka, Managing Director of Ceat.
The investment will be made over a period of 10 years with the project generating over 1,000 jobs, an official statement said.
The company has acquired 163 acres for the greenfield unit, which is expected to begin production in the next 12 months making passenger car radial tyres, with an initial capacity of around 250 tonnes per day or 0.7 million tyres per month. The company also plans to utilise the proposed plant for exports.
Ceat has six production units in Bhandup, Nashik, Halol, Ambernath and Sri Lanka. Truck and bus tyres make up about a third of its revenue, followed by two- and three-wheeler segment, which accounts for about 29 per cent of the topline. As of March 31, 2018, Ceat had a production capacity of 95,000 tyres per day.
With Ceat’s proposed investments, Tamil Nadu houses manufacturing units of almost all major tyre makers in the country.
While MRF and TVS Tyres are headquartered in Tamil Nadu and have production units in the State, French tyre giant Michelin and India’s Apollo Tyres and JK Tyre have set up large tyre manufacturing units near Chennai.
Ceat’s investment should give breather to the State government, which has been facing severe criticism for not attracting manufacturing investments like the neighbouring States such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.