Scania Commercial Vehicles India (SCVI) is all set to open a new bus manufacturing facility at Narasapura, near Bangalore, in August. The company will start production of Metrolink coaches with an annual capacity of 1,000 buses.

Following the launch of the coach in February this year, SCVI has till now sold 35 units thus far and expects to close CY 2014 with sales of 150 buses in the Indian market, 50 percent of them manufactured at the new plant. The company, which says its Metrolink buses are designed for Indian road conditions and offer ultra-luxury features and comfort coupled with adequate safety measures, is confident about selling 500 units by 2015.

Yesterday, SCVI delivered the first of its Metrolink 14.5-metre, 53-seater coaches to Parveen Travels, one of the largest bus fleet operators in Tamil Nadu. Two such coaches will operate on the Chennai-Kochi route. Parveen Travels currently has an operational fleet of 1,300 buses, for both inter-city and staff transportation. This includes over 300 premium coaches from various OEMs. Managing director A Afzal said, “We are investing about Rs 250 crore over three and as part of this investment we will be inducting 50 Metrolink buses in our fleet over the next two years.”

Talking to Autocar Professional on the sidelines of the vehicle handover event, Anders Grundströmer, managing director, Scania India, said: “We will start producing Metrolink coaches from our Narasapura facility next month with 30 percent localised chassis and 100 percent body localization. The coaches will be offered as fully built solutions.”

Grundströmer added, “Our coaches are successfully running on Indian roads. Customers are satisfied with the product and we are receiving a positive response, which makes us confident about reaching the 500-unit mark by next year.” At present, SCVI has sold Metrolink buses in the western and southern parts of the country, which are recognised as the biggest bus markets in India. It is also talking to a few potential buyers in Delhi-NCR and expects to introduce these coaches in north India soon.

Meanwhile, in a major step towards introducing environment-friendly buses in India, Scania is launching an ethanol-fuelled city bus in Nagpur next month. The bus will run on 95 percent ethanol, which is available in India, and reduces 70 percent CO2.

Scania has seven dealers in India so far in the west and south and is ramping up its network besides using its partner L&T’s network in the mining areas. In Chennai, the company has appointed an authorised dealer for Tamil Nadu. It is also investing in service vans to ensure speedy service support to customers within two hours of fault reporting.

SCVI, which opened its truck plant last year, says it is handing over two demo Metrolink buses to the Karnataka State Transport Corporation in the next few days.

Photograph (L-R): Sivakumar V, director (sales), SCVI; Anders Grundstromer, MD, SCVI; A Afzal, CMD, Parveen Travels and A Sadiq, director, Parveen Travels at the vehicle handover.