Inauguration ceremony held for Apollo Chennai plant
On February 10, about a year the first tyre emerged from the curing presses at Apollo Tyres’ new Chennai factory, company management, board members and government ministers assembled at the plant to celebrate its official inauguration. Present to mark the occasion were company chairman Onkar S Kanwar, vice chairman and managing director Neeraj Kanwar plus members of the Board of directors and CEOs from Apollo’s operations in India, Europe and South Africa, along with Tamil Nadu state government representatives including labour minister T N Anbarasan and principal secretary of Industries Rajeev Ranjan.
“While planning this manufacturing facility, we have ‘questioned’ existing practices, studied benchmarked systems within Apollo and outside, with a desire to create an iconic tyre manufacturing facility, which is technologically advanced and yet cost competitive,” commented Onkar Kanwar during the proceedings. The Apollo Tyres chairman described the Oragadam plant, located near Chennai, as the company’s ninth manufacturing unit worldwide and its fourth in India. Current output is 7,000 passenger car tyres and 1,300 commercial vehicle tyres per day, a figure that will rise to 16,000 passenger car tyres and 6,000 commercial vehicle tyres when the plant reaches full capacity. In January, incidentally, a Tamil Nadu government press release stated the final passenger car tyre capacity as being 8,000 units per day; Tyres & Accessories has not yet received clarification as to which figure is correct.
Tamil Nadu state deputy chief minister M.K. Stalin, who was also present at the inauguration ceremony, commented that the Apollo factory’s output had pushed total tyre manufacturing capacity in the Chennai region to more than 1,600 tonnes per day. “This will make Chennai the largest tyre manufacturing centre in the country and one of the largest in the world,” he said. “Chennai, therefore, is not only the car capital of India, but is also the tyre capital of India.” Stalin noted that the state’s chief minister held the vision of developing Chennai into a global automobile hub, and in addition to the presence of Indian vehicle manufacturers a global major is reported to be in final stage discussions regarding setting up a 300,000 unit per annum plant near the city.
The Apollo Tyres site near Chennai covers 128 acres and construction work began in December 2008. Commercial tyre production commenced in February 2010, and the initial Rs 4.5 billion (£60.9 million) investment from 2008 has since been increased to Rs 21 billion (£284.1 million).
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