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Tata Motors may set up unit at Dharwad

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BS Reporter Chennai/ Dharwad
Last Updated : Feb 06 2013 | 5:51 AM IST
The special session of the Karnataka Legislature at Belgaum aimed at giving a fillip to development of North Karnataka seems to have had its impact.
 
India's largest bus and truck manufacturer Tata Motors plans to set up a heavy vehicle manufacturing unit at Belur off Dharwad with an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore.
 
The unit when ready will provide jobs to over 10,000 people from North Karnataka. Tata has a unit, Telcon, that manufactures construction equipment that was set up a decade ago on the Pune-Bangalore National Highway 10 kms from Dharwad. It has acquired 680 acres of land.
 
The Tata Motors' bus manufacturing unit will be set up near Telcon and will be a joint venture with a French and a Brazilian concern respectively.
 
A delegation led by Tata Motors managing director Ravikanth and vice president T S Tagore had met chief minister H D Kumaraswamy in Belgaum on Tuesday and held preliminary discussion on the proposal.
 
The CM reportedly told the delegation that the government was ready to extend all possible incentives envisaged in the manufacturing region policy framework.
 
A senior executive of Tata Motors said the company will bring fabricated material from France and Brazil, assemble it with the Tata chassis at Dharwad and then supply it from here.
 
With Karnataka as the base, the company plans to export it to other countries. The company was considering two places for setting up the unit but finally found Dharwad the most feasible because of its proximity to Mangalore and Karwar ports.
 
The Tatas submitted a proposal to the state for setting up a and had sought 300 acres of land in addition to all the incentives on a par with the special economic zone.
 
According to highly-placed sources, the project will come through as the Suvarna Karnataka (Golden jubilee year of founding of Karnataka) gift and both CM Kumaraswamy and chairman of Tata Motors Ratan Tata are expected to announce the launch of the project.
 
It may be recalled here that Dharwad North MP Prahlad Joshi in a letter to Ratan Tata had urged him not to shift the proposed Rs 1 lakh dream car-manufacturing unit from Dharwad to Kolkata.
 
Ratan Tata in his reply had indicated that the company would consider assembling special purpose vehicles in Dharwad if the market size justified an independent facility.
 
According to another official of Tata, only preliminary talks have taken place on the project and it might be too early to expect an announcement.
 
The company had placed the proposal before the government and expected the government to consider it before the company took a decision by September-end.

 

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First Published: Sep 29 2006 | 12:00 AM IST

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