The Hindu Business Line : Maruti Suzuki plans to set up a complete design centre in India

Sources close to the company told Business Line that the design centre will be part of the R & D centre, which will come up as part of the expansion plan of the company in India.

Last week, Maruti announced its second expansion plan, which entails an additional investment of Rs 2,718 crore. The company plans to launch five new models including a diesel car in the next five years.

The new investments will also be used to set up a research and development centre as well as to upgrade the existing facility. This additional investment is an extension of the Rs 3,200-crore investment announced earlier by Suzuki for setting up a passenger car and a diesel engine plant.

Sources said the centre will have the entire design capabilities which will include designing cars from scratch.

Design hub: With the company announcing that it plans to launch a slew of cars over the next five to 10 years, and plans to make India a hub for Suzuki's small cars, the design centre will play an important role in designing cars for the Indian as well as other countries in Asia.

Maruti has already started deploying some of its engineers to Suzuki Motor Corporation in Japan to get some experience in designing cars. Nearly 20 engineers from Maruti were sent to Hamamatsu, Suzuki's headquarters in Japan to co-design Maruti's latest car, Swift.

Lessons learnt from such an exposure are expected to pave the way for in-house development and design of cars by Maruti for future international models.

Sources did not say the amount of investment planned for setting up the design centre. The company has earmarked Rs 1,000 crore towards setting up a diesel plant that would have the capacity to build 3 lakh engines per annum both for Maruti as well as for Suzuki plants.