Mahindra To Setup Tractor Unit in Telangana

[cooldhaya]

HYDERABAD: Giving a major fillip to industrialisation in the backward Telangana region, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) will soon set up a tractor manufacturing unit at its Zaheerabad facility in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh.

M&M has proposed to invest Rs.300 crore on the tractor manufacturing facility over the next three years that will provide direct employment to about 2,000 people and indirect employment to another 5,000 persons, company Vice-President (Operations), V. S. Venkatraman, said. The proposed unit would manufacture 90,000 tractors annually and also 3 and 4-wheeler commercial vehicles, he said.

M&M will soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh Government to set up the new unit and commence the project work in the first week of November, government sources said. The company currently has its plant at Zaheerabad, 136 km from Hyderabad, where its products such as UV (Maxx), 3-wheelers (Champion Alfa), light commercial vehicles and buses are manufactured. The company has not sought more land for the new unit saying it would be built on the vacant land at the existing unit. Submitting M&M's latest proposal for setting up the tractor manufacturing unit, Mr. Venkatraman, however, wanted the State government to extend a ‘special package of incentives' in view of the large employment-generation potential in the backward Telangana region, official sources said. — PTI


Source:Hindu

 

[visran]

Home grown automobile firm Mahindra & Mahindra, which has set up Asia's largest tractor manufacturing facility at Zaheerabad in Andhra Pradesh, may consider setting up a passenger and four-wheeler load carriers facility in the state.

Pawan Goenka, M&M's President, automotive and farm equipment, said the group will consider the request of AP government to set up passenger and four-wheeler load carriers manufacturing facility.

He was talking to reporters at Zaheerabad, 120km from Hyderabad, after inaugurating the tractor facility on Wednesday. However, he did not elaborate on the timeframe for their decision on the AP government's plea.

Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of the $15.9 billion Mahindra group, said the group was keen to work with the AP government in various areas including the education sector to train the local youth for employment.

M&M's automobile facility at Zaheerabad manufactures three wheelers, light commercial vehicles and four wheeler sports utility vehicle Bolero. The group has spent Rs 300 crore on Asia's largest tractor manufacturing plant with a capacity to produce one-lakh units a year.

Goenka said the company was also setting up a supplier park at Zaheerabad where seven spare parts vendors have agreed to set up their facilities involving investments of Rs 20-50 crore each, taking the total to some Rs 150 crore, over the next 12 months. The AP government has allotted 100 acres of land to M&M to set up the supplier park, which can accommodate some 20 suppliers.

Ruling out plans to acquire tractor companies in the overseas markets, Goenka said M&M has enough capacities both in the domestic and overseas markets. The company has tractor production facilities in Mumbai, Nagpur, Rudrapur, Jaipur, Mohali, Rajkot and Zaheerabad in India, two plants each in the US and China and one in Australia.

Admitting that the tractor industry was currently subdued owing to unfavourable economic conditions across the globe, Goenka said the Zaheerabad facility was expected to reach 100% capacity utilization over the next four years or so. Anand Mahindra said the group always believed in investing for the future.

The absence of automobile system in AP has in fact led to many automobile companies to prefer locating their facilities near Chennai in Tamil Nadu. The AP government, which lost many automobile projects, has been luring the automobile firms with land and incentives to encourage vendors to set up their spare parts production facilities.

M&M may set up passenger vehicle plant in AP - The Economic Times