Ural India starts production of heavy duty off road truck at Haldia

Kolkata, Jan 17 (UNI) Ending long wait Ural India Limited, a joint venture among Ural Industries of Russia, Motijug Enterprise and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation(WBIDC) today announced the formal launch of production of its heavy duty off the road trucks, pay loaders and dumpers for the Indian Army and several heavy industries like mining and steel sectors.

Announcing the launch of the production at its sprawling Haldia plant, Ural India Limited Executive Director Anirudh Kanoi here saidfrom next year the company would produce about 3,000 heavy duty 6x6 trucks and dumpers for supplying them to the armed forces and several mining and steel industrial in the country.

Of the 3,000 vehicles to be produced from next year,half would be sold to the mininig and steel industries to meet their increasing demand, while the remaining ones,numbering about 1500, would be despatched to the Army and to some foreign buyers including those in Bangladesh and Nepal, Mr Kanoi said adding that so far Rs 100 crore had been invested in the Haldia plant for starting the production.

Referring to his future plans both in terms of production and investment, Mr Kanoi informed that they had targetted to produce about 40,000 vehicles per annum within the next five years when the amount of investment would also go up from Rs 100 crores now to Rs 550 crore by 2011.

He said since the inauguration of the Haldia plant, the first and the largest heavy vehicle manufacturing plant in Eastern India, Ural India produced different spare parts of off the road vehicles and particularly catering to the demand of the Indian Army who had importedalarge number of Ural trucks from Russia a few years ago.

Asked whether the launch of full fledged heavy duty truck would suspend the spare parts making activities of Ural Indiaendangering the future of its 400 odd employeesso far, its Executive Director informed that as anew business strategy they had recently acquired 20 acres of land from the West Bengal government at Kalyani in nearby Nadia district for setting up a separate joint venture unit for heavy duty truck body and other components entitles 'Gorcia Auto Industries".

This would be a 50:50 joint venture between Ural India and Garci Indisries of Slovakia and would attract an initial investment of Rs 100 croresfrom both the partners, Mr Kanoi informed and hoped that when come up by next year the new unit would not only cater to the entire demand of Ural India,but would also ensure necessary supply to other leading auto manufacturing units in the country.

About the prospect of exports of Ural India, Mr Kanoi describing it very encouraging said besides lots of business inquaries from a number of foreign countries,they had received firm orders from Bangladesh and Nepal for supply of OTR trucks to the tune of several hundred crores.

About the quality of their products,he said though initially only about 30 per cent of the total components would be built indegenously,in near future the dependance on foreign parts would be reduced substantially to project the vehicles as true Indian products.

UNI