BGR to add 350 Scania mining trucks to its fleet by 2015

Swedish commercial vehicle major Scania is bagging new orders for its vehicles at a regular pace in India. One of its major customers, BGR Mining & Infra has announced that it will add 500 Scania trucks in its off-road truck fleet to serve in its multiple coal mining sites.

The Hyderabad-based BGR Mining, one of the major coal mining contract operators, has started buying Scania trucks since March this year. Within a span of six months, BGR bought 149 off-road trucks from Scania.

Taking the delivery of the 150th  P 410 8x4 tipper from Scania on Wednesday at the Scania Commercial Vehicles India production facility in Bangalore, B Umapathi Reddy, managing director of BGR Mining, said, “We are satisfied with the performance and aftersales support from Scania. We would increase the number of Scania trucks to 500 units in our fleet by 2015 from the current 150. We are in discussion with the company on various business propositions in this connection.”

The open announcement made by BGR is expected to have a good impact in the premium Indian off-road truck industry, which has been so far dominated by other European CV makers such as Volvo and Mercedes.

Currently BGR has a fleet of over 600 off-road trucks, of which around 300 are from Mercedes and 200 from Volvo. BGR’s decision to buy more Scania off-road trucks clearly is giving a boost to the HCV industry and rivals will be looking to bag similar orders. 

BGR is one of India’s largest mining contract companies with operations across the country in five to six states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattishgarh and Jharkhand. Coal mining majors like Singareni Collieries Ltd and subsidiaries of Coal India are some of its clients.

Talking to Autocar  Professional, Anders Grundströmer, managing director of Scania Commercial Vehicles India and senior vice-president of the Scania Group, said, “The delivery of the 150^th Scania P 410 8x4  tipper in less than six months to a single customer like BGR is a testimony to Scania’s superior products and unmatched aftermarket service.”

The P 410 8 x 4 is being manufactured at its production facility in Bangalore that commenced operations in October 2013. It is equipped with two-pedal Opticruise, a fully automated gear-changing system for best fuel efficiency and ease of driving. It is also fitted with an 18.8 cubic metre rock body. These tippers were put to test by BGR under stringent mining conditions and the vehicle performed really well with display of excellent uptime, reliability and outstanding mileage, he added.

Although it has set up its 100 percent subsidiary in 2011, Scania has been supplying its off-road trucks through Larsen and Toubro (L&T) with which it has partnership pact for off-road trucks since 2007. However, the Swedish CV major is marketing its on-road truck and buses in India directly through dealerships.

In the past seven years, Grundströmer said the company has sold around 1,200 trucks through L&T in India.

Photograph: Anders Grundstromer, MD of Scania Commercial Vehicles India and senior VP of the Scania Group , delivering the 150th P 410 8 x 4 tipper to B Umapathi Reddy, managing director of BGR Mining, at the company’s Bangalore facility.