Isuzu Motors India Pvt Ltd on Wednesday said its contract manufacturing relationship with Hindustan Motors Finance Corporation Ltd (HMFCL) was still in operation.

The Japanese automobile company was getting its light commercial vehicles and sports utility vehicles assembled for the Indian market at the plant of HMFCL, a CK Birla group company, at Thiruvallur in Tamil Nadu.

Isuzu’s own plant, being built at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh, is scheduled to be ready by April 2016.

Shigeru Wakabayashi, Deputy Managing Director, Isuzu Motors India, told reporters that Isuzu has not taken any call on the issue post commissioning of its 1.2 lakh units-a-year Sri City plant.

Isuzu said it is slated for initial indigenous production at 70 per cent. This is likely to go up to 100 per cent in the following three years.

An Isuzu official said his company aimed to sell 10,000 units in 2016-17, after its plant commences commercial production. In the last financial year (2014-15), Isuzu sold around 1,300 vehicles in India. This year it plans to double sales.

The Isuzu official was here to inaugurate a dealership outlet in city. The Japanese company plans to open 60 outlets by the end of 2015-16. It currently has established 21 dealership outlets, including the one in Kolkata. Other outlets are located in Delhi, Noida, Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Madurai, Vishakhapatnam, Trirupati, Cochin, Kozhikode, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Gurgaon, Indore, and Vadodara.

Isuzu said in a 1,033-km test drive between Lucknow and Kolkata, its pick-up truck D-Max achieved a mileage of 20.42 km a litre of diesel.

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