Maruti plans a Rs 1,700 crore diesel plant in Gurgaon
Maruti Suzuki India’s Board of Directors had a meeting today after which it was announced that by 2014 the company is planning on investing a total of 2,600 crore in the development of a new diesel plant at its Gurgaon facility and in expansion of Research and Development activities at Rohtak. According to the Chairman of the company, Mr. R C Bhargava, a sum of Rs. 1,700 crore will be invested in setting up a brand new diesel plant at the company’s facility in Gurgaon, the ownership of which will be fully held by the company. On the subject of R&D centre at Rohtak, Mr. Bhargava mentioned that theboard has sanctioned an additional sum of Rs. 900 crore as the investment for setting up the R&D centre for several facilities like testing for emission and safety at Rohtak. This sum of money will be in addition to the Rs. 1,500 crore that the company had previously announced as an investment for developing the test track.
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The construction of the diesel plant will take place in phases which would kick off by the mid of next year. The initial capacity of the plant is expected to be 1.5 lakh units per year. Mr. Bhargava also indicated that the company would be investing Rs. 950 crore in the first phase after which there are plans for doubling the capacity to 3 lakh units per year. He added that the aim of extending the capacity to 3 lakh units will be achieved by 2014 and the total investment would then be Rs. 1,700 crore. At present, Maruti Suzuki India is sourcing diesel engines from Suzuki Powetrain India Ltd (SPIL) and Fiat India. Before the announcement the company had put on hold the investments on the plant as the company was waiting for the government to decide on the higher cess on diesel in the Budget 2012-13. Till the company’s plant gets functional, to meet the increasing demand of diesel engines, SPIL will be providing MSI with 3 lakh diesel units instead of 2.4 lakh and Fiat India has also ramped up the figure by 1 lakh.
