Scania may join hands with L&T to drive specialty vehicles in India

Bangalore, November 15, 2012: Swedish commercial vehicle major Scania is weighing options to join hands with India’s biggest infrastructure and engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) in the specialty truck segment.

Scania is conducting a feasibility study to bring its special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to India as they already have a strong presence in the global special-purpose truck market.

Talking to Autocar Professional while launching the company’s on-road trucks in Bangalore, Henrik Fagrenius, managing director, Scania Commercial Vehicles India (SCVI), said, “We are looking into the Specialty Vehicle segment. You name it, we can supply vehicles in most of the specialty segments.”

Referring to L&T, he said, “In some of the areas (specialty vehicle segments), we have initiated talks with L&T.” Since L&T has big operations for defence and airport sectors, he said, “We might to do something jointly,” he added. The company has not yet decided whether the SPVs should be imported as Completely Built Units (CBU) or assemble them here. “If it is Air Force rescue and firefighting trucks, we have to see where we can get body building. If we find we could make them in India, then we will do it,” he added.

Suresh Ekambaram, director (aftersales), SCVI, said: “Most of these institutional special application purchases are highly specification centric. So we need to work along with them (customers) and evolve. Of course, we have solutions for almost all specialty requirements.”

Currently L&T is distributor for Scania trucks designed for mining and construction industry in India. It would be the second deal between them if Scania chose to enter the specialty truck segment in India through L&T. Scania has special-purpose trucks in the areas like fire and rescue, refuse collection, defence, road sweeping, airport support, recovery, mobile crane and heavy haulage.

L&T has already been issued with industrial licenses for a wide range of products after the Union government’s decision to open up defence production to the private sector. The licenses were issued to cover design, develop, assemble many defence-related products including armored combat vehicles. L&T is also implementing many infrastructure projects at various airports.

JAISHANKAR JAYARAMIAH