Rs 1000 crore investment is expected in the next two years.
Riding high on orders from original equipment manufacturers(OEMs), the Rajkot based autocomponents industry hopes to double its turnover from OEMs to Rs 2000 crore this fiscal. Most city-based manufacturers are working in full capacity and have also increased production from single to double shifts to meet demand.
Bhavesh Patel, president of Rajkot Engineering Association pointed out that the city's autocomponent industry has been clocking a 40 per cent growth for the last two years, up significantly from a 25 per cent in the earlier period.
Rajkot enjoys a 70 per cent market share in the Indian auto-parts industry and houses around 50 OEM suppliers. The net turnover of these units was around Rs 800-1000 crore in 2009-10, which is estimated to double to over Rs 2000-2200 crore by March 2011.
The overall turnover of the industry, including non-OEM suppliers, is around Rs 4000-4500 crore every year.
“We are expecting that while the turnover of OEM suppliers will go up to Rs 2000 crore, the overall industry turnover may cross the Rs 6000 crore mark”, said R K Jain, president and managing director of Vikram Valves Limited, Rajkot. He added that almost every unit in Rajkot is now working in double shift to fulfill the orders and is also working on plans to expand capacity in the nearterm.
According to industry insiders, fresh investments worth Rs 1000 crore is expected within the next two years on capacity expansion plans.
Himanshu Nandasana, managing director of Bhavani Industry that is supplying parts to the Tata Nano plant in Sanand said that "Rajkot's industry now has more orders than its capacity can meet, and everyone is drawing up expansion plans". Bhavani Industry has already invested more than Rs 25 crore to start production unit in the vendor park at Sanand that will start production by January next year. The company’s present manufacturing capacity is 40 lakh pieces per month and it targeting to touch a turnover of Rs 250 crore by 2012.Rajkot produces more then 300 types of parts for the automobile industry and currently employs around 20,000 people.
