Mahindra Nissan Renault mothership to land in Chennai

Auto majors’ consortium touches base in South India

BY OUR AUTO CORRESPONDENT

March 1, 2007: The country’s biggest vehicle manufacturing centre will soon come up in Chennai. The Tamil Nadu government on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with the vehicle-manufacturing consortium comprising India’s Mahindra and Mahindra, French major Renault and Japanese major Nissan.

The agreement has facilitated the establishment of an integrated automobile project with an initial investment of about Rs 4,000 crore at Oragadam.

As per this, the consortium will manufacture utility vehicles and cars and will take up integrated automobile manufacturing. The consortium will have an engine plant, transmission plant, press shop, body shop, paint shop and assembly line.

According to sources, the facility will have an initial capacity to manufacture four lakh vehicles a year and will be significantly increased later on. This apart the project will also manufacture 50,000 tractors a year. A report said that about 41,000 persons would get jobs as a result of the setting up of the plant. This will include those provided by ancillary units and service providers, it added.

With the consortium planning to make an initial investment of about Rs 4,000 crore, it is expected that the project will result in a gross value addition of about Rs 18,000 crore a year to the south Indian state’s GDP. The additional investment in the State by vendors and supporting service providers is expected to be about Rs 10,000 crore, added a report.

The Mahindras will also set up separate Mahindra Research Valley in the Mahindra World City.