Mahindra & Mahindra plans new Rs 4,000 crore plant in Tamil Nadu

Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), India’s largest SUV manufacturer, has revealed plans to set up a new Rs 4,000 crore plant in Tamil Nadu.

Speaking at a curtain raiser event on February 14 to announce a Global Investor Meet to be organised by the Tamil Nadu government in May 2014, Dr Pawan Goenka, president, Automotive and Farm equipment division, M&M, said, “We are looking for a long-term plan spread over seven years and the investment will be in two stages. The first phase will see investment in a test track facility followed by an automotive plant.”

He added that the state government has promised to make available 255 acres of land for this investment, in Cheyyar in the Kancheepuram district, and an agreement will be signed during the Global Investor Meet.  The company will likely to begin operations at this new facility once it reaches full capacity utilisation at its Chakan plant near Pune.

This will be M&M’s second investment in Tamil Nadu after it has opened its integrated business city known as Mahindra World city on the outskirts of Chennai.        

M&M’s latest investment plan will be significant for Tamil Nadu, which currently has installed vehicle production capacity of 13,80,000 cars per annum and about 350,000 commercial vehicles per annum. Chennai already houses the manufacturing plants of seven global automobile giants including Ford, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Daimler, Nissan, Renault and BMW. Also construction equipment majors Caterpillar, USA and Komatsu, Japan have set up large earthmoving equipment manufacturing plants here.

Besides these, the state has large investments from Ashok Leyland, Royal Enfield, the TVS Group and MRF while tyre makers Michelin and Apollo have large manufacturing facilities in the city’s industrial areas.