Commercial vehicle major Ashok Leyland Ltd (ALL) is planning to set up a new facility in Jharkhand. This will be the first investment from a major automobile company in the state, which has identified the sector as one of the key drivers to make it one of the industrial hubs in the country.
The government and company did not comment about investment. Sources said the company may look at an investment of around Rs 500 crore to start with.
Sanjay Kumar, principal secretary to the chief minister of Jharkhand, confirmed the development and said senior members of the Hinduja family, which run the company, met the Chief Minister and held discussions. He did not share more details.
The company has manufacturing footprints spread across the globe with eight plants, including one at Ras Al Khaimah (UAE).
In India they have two facilities in Tamil Nadu — Ennore and Hosur — and one each in Bhandara (Maharashtra), Alwar (Rajasthan) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand).
The company is also planning to set up a plant in Telangana at an investment of Rs 500 crore. The plant will assemble buses and trucks.
The Hinduja Group's flagship company is planning to set up small facilities for assembling the vehicles in various parts of the country and the plants in Telegana and Jharkhand are a part of this plan.
Jharkhand, which recently entered into the race to win investors confidence to attract investments has formulated 16 new policies, including automobile and auto component policy.
Kumar said, automobile is one of the key area of the state's focus considering the labour resources, raw material base and environment friendly policies.