German engineering conglomerate Bosch Group today said it would invest Rs 2,500 crore in India in the next two years to set up plants and expand capacity.
“Over the past decade, Bosch has increased capital expenditure in India more than fivefold, from Rs 100 crore in 2001 to Rs 570 crore in 2010. And this is just the beginning. With the fresh investment of Rs 2,500 crore in the next two years, Bosch would create additional capacities to meet the growing and unique Indian market needs,” Bernd Bohr, chairman of Bosch Automotive Group, said. Bosch Group has been present in India since 1953 and operates through six companies.
Of the Rs 2,500 crore, the flagship company of the group in India, Bosch Ltd, would use Rs 1,300 crore, Bohr said. The group will set up a manufacturing plant at Sanand in Gujarat with an investment of Rs 150 crore for making electrical controls and drives. The plant will be operational by 2012, according to V K Viswanathan, president of Bosch India.
The company would also set up a greenfield facility at Verna in Goa for packaging solutions and another plant in Chennai for electrical drives, said Viswanathan, who is also the managing director of Bosch Ltd. The investment plans include capacity expansion of existing plants at Jaipur, Nashik, Naganathapura and Bangalore.
A ‘large’ portion of the investment will be used to develop products for the growing needs of the Indian market. “Having met Bharat Stage III norms with the inline pump, we are now making further efforts to upgrade these pumps for higher injection pressure to meet forthcoming emission norms,” Bohr said. “For the low-priced vehicle segment, common rail for enhanced fuel efficiency is also being worked upon. Innovative solutions for tractors are another area of work.”
The ¤47-billion group will also invest an unspecified amount in software engineering and developing power train electronics for gasoline and diesel engines along with hybrid and electric vehicles. “We will employ about 800 engineers in our Bangalore and Coimbatore facilities to develop power train electronics for reducing carbon dioxide emission,” Bohr said.
The company had already acquired land in Coimbatore for setting up its own software technology development campus and engineering labs, said Vijay Ratnaparkhe, managing director, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Ltd.
