Hero MotoCorp to invest Rs 2,575 cr in new plants, R&D centre

Country's largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp today said it will invest Rs 2,575 crore to set up two new manufacturing plants in Gujarat and Rajastan and an R&D centre by 2013-14.

"We have huge investment plans in various parts of the organization. We will be setting up our fourth plant at Neemrana in Rajasthan," Hero MotoCorp managing director and chief executive officer Pawan Munjal said.

The company will invest Rs 400 crore for the Neemrana plant, which will have an installed capacity of 7.5 lakh units per annum. This plant will be commissioned in the first quarter of FY 2014, he added.

The fifth plant will be set up in Gujarat with an investment of Rs 1,100 crore. This will have a capacity of 1.2 million units, he said, adding that the plant would be commissioned by the second quarter of 2013-14.

"Once the fourth and fifth plants are commissioned, our total manufacturing capacity will be over 9 million units a year from the current about 7 million units," Munjal said.

He added that the company will be setting up a research and development (R&D) centre with an investment of Rs 400 crore at a 250-acre location near Jaipur in Rajasthan.

At present, the company produces 70 lakh units annually from its three manufacturing plants at Dharuhera and Gurgaon in Haryana, and Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

At present, the company is in the process of investing Rs 500 crore in capacity expansion of existing plants. It has also earmarked Rs 175 crore for various other investments.

Last year in August, while announcing its new brand identity in London, the company had said it would set up two new manufacturing plants in the country.

The company had said it is looking at $10 billion turnover in the next five years and sales of 10 million units with exports to be about 10 per cent of its total sales.

In terms of investment, the company had said it would pump in more investments in the next five years than it had done in the its 27 years of association with Honda, in the erstwhile Hero Honda joint venture that stood at over $1 billion.

In December 2010, the Indian promoter of the firm, the B.M. Munjal family had agreed to buy out the entire 26 per cent stake of Honda in Hero Honda for Rs 3,841.83 crore. It brought an end to a 26-year-old successful joint venture.