Scania sets up India plant

Scania Commercial Vehicles India announced plans to manufacture 2,500 heavy haulage trucks besides 1,000 inter-city buses and coaches annually at its facility in Narasapura in Karnataka.

Scania will also employ over 800 people at this facility within five years. The manufacturing facility with initial investment of Rs 250 crore was inaugurated by Karnataka's Chief Minister, S. Siddaramaiah in the presence of Union Minister for Road and Transportation, Oscar Fernandes and Mr. Martin Lundstedt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Scania Global.

The facility will serve as company's head office and centre for all commercial operations across the country. The operations will consist of final assembly of trucks with bodywork and building of complete coaches along with a service workshop and a central parts warehouse for timely service.

The Narasapura plant will house two manufacturing units - one for truck assembly and another for buses. Scania started production of trucks at the new facility in Narasapura during June and production trials have started for mining and off-road trucks. Production of on-road trucks will start soon and the bus rollout is planned for the first quarter of 2014.