Hero starts work on Gujarat plant

Aims to finish construction of the Gujarat plant in 15 months

Hero MotoCorp, the country’s largest two-wheeler maker, has started building the boundary wall at the site of its upcoming plant at Halol near Vadodara in Gujarat. The company aims to build the plant in 15 months, said state government officials.

A company spokesperson confirming the development said, “The investment in our proposed fifth plant at Halol will be to the tune of Rs 1,100 crore. We have already been allotted 175 acres of the 215 agreed in the SSA (state support agreement) with the Gujarat government.” Sources said the remaining land would be allotted in a month or two.

The spokesperson added, “We will soon take a call on the time of commencement of construction of the plant. We expect the plant to go on stream sometime in the financial year 2015-16.”

Senior company officials had visited the state recently to hold a review meeting and discuss details of SSA with the government. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.8 million vehicles a year.

Hero MotorCorp has three factories — in Gurgaon and Dharuhera (Haryana) and Haridwar (Uttarakhand). The combined installed capacity of these is close to seven million two wheelers a year. The company has started building its fourth plant in Neemrana (Rajasthan), which will have an installed capacity of 750,000 vehicles a year and is expected to be operational soon.

Hero’s plants at Haridwar and Gurgaon have faced labour trouble in the past. The company sold 6,183,784 two-wheelers in the calendar year 2013, up a per cent year-on-year from 6,120,259.