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Tractors India Pvt Ltd (TIPL) — which owns the dealership for Caterpillar earth moving equipment in North, East and North-Eastern India, Bhutan and Nepal — will set up an underground-mining machine manufacturing plant at Asansol in West Bengal. The company will also look at making defence vehicles.
The proposed facility, coming up at an estimated cost of ₹120 crore, is likely to go on stream between July and September next year.
The ₹1,600-crore TIPL — once a subsidiary of Kolkata-based TIL — was acquired by Goodearth Minetech Pvt Ltd of Delhi for a net consideration of ₹350 crore in 2016.
According to Sunil Kumar Chaturvedi, Chairman and Managing Director, TIPL, the company will tie up with Caterpillar for using its technology for making these “expensive and sophisticated” equipment.
“These would be specialised mining equipment covering segments where Caterpillar has exited the market,” he told BusinessLine on the sidelines of Infocom 2017.
While Chaturvedi did not specify the type of machines, he claimed there was a good market for these in Eastern India, Russia, Australia and Africa.
“Caterpillar is more into a volume game with the US market dictating its product portfolio. But, it still owns the technology for these equipment that have demand elsewhere,” he added.
TIPL is already in talks for sourcing spares and other parts of these equipment from countries in Europe, the US and India.
For the current year (it follows a calendar year), the company is looking to clock a turnover of ₹1,750 crore from India operations; while the target is to take it to ₹2,100 crore by 2018. Business will be driven primarily by the Caterpillar dealership business and across segments like construction, energy and transportation and mining.
Defence manufacturingAccording to Chaturvedi, the defence contracts involve re-powering of tanks. TIPL has already got two contracts from the Army; and the first prototype is expected to be made ready by February next year.
“We are developing the prototype of BMP-2 (a second-generation, amphibious infantry fighting vehicle introduced in the 1980s in the Soviet Union),” he said.
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