DSK Motowheels to finalise plant site at Lonand

September 15, 2012: After three months of hunting for a suitable site for its ambitious plant, DSK Motowheels is now in the concluding stages of finalising the plant site. The company has narrowed down on a 110-acre site at Lonand village, 77km away from Pune. Shirish Kulkarni, director, DSK Motowheels (pictured), told Autocar Professional that “we are about to finalise a site in Lonand, which is near from Pune and is suitable for us with good ancillary support. We aim at wrapping up all the necessary formalities and land acquisition process in the coming 2-3 months. We look at the plant construction to begin by November-December 2012.” The land and acquisition costs will scale up to Rs 50-60 crore, a part of the announced investment of Rs 300 crore earlier. As per the company timeline, the plant construction and equipment installation is expected to conclude as early as June-July 2013 with the first priority of setting up the assembly line to get the production moving and a paint shop to cut down costs. At double the existing production capacity, the new plant is planned to roll out 15-18 units per shift per day.

With the recently launched GT250R getting enough response to keep the production line occupied at its existing plant, the waiting period of other bikes such as the GT650, the GT650R and the ST7 has gone up to 2 months. Furthermore, the scheduled launches of the stylish cruisers, the GV650 and the GV250, are now postponed to December-January 2013 and March 2013 respectively. The company has received over 500 bookings for the GT250R including the deliveries with demand dominating from the western and southern regions.

Meanwhile, planning to enter the volume segment by developing completely localised 150cc and 125cc bikes by 2014-15, the company aims to significantly scale up its operations by rolling out 100,000 units per year by 2015. Kulkarni adds that the local development of small-capacity engines will be accompanied with increasing the localisation of 650cc, 700cc engines in 2014. DSK Motowheels also plans a highly localised single-cylinder, 250cc engine to power a naked street bike by 2014-15. The company currently has a pan-India network of 19 dealers, which is expected to grow to 30 outlets by December 2012.

AMIT PANDAY