The Hindu Business Line : Pune auto cluster project begins operations

The Rs 67-crore first phase would have prototype making facility, CAD/CAM/CAE centre, CNC matching centre, research and development laboratory, inspection, validation and certification centres. Testing facilities and R&D laboratories for rubber and polymer sectors would also be established.

Within a span of one year, three buildings, the multipurpose institutional building taking up 65,000 sq ft area; a permanent exhibition centre of 38,000 sq ft and a common facility with a food court etc, are expected to come up.Mr Sharad Pawar, Union Minister for Agriculture, launched the phase I operations in a rented premise of about 15,000 sq. ft belonging to Siddeshwar Industries Pvt Ltd, which is into the auto component, machining and forging segments. The Bhoomipujan for the permanent complex was also conducted here today. The company, which has about six factories in the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), has a turnover of Rs 75 crore and a forging capacity of 1,500 tonnes.

Mr Ajay Dua, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and former Pune Municipal Commissioner, said the auto cluster was sanctioned in 2004. He said the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation would provide the infrastructure as the manufacturing segment has reached a stage where it needed support for facilities such as the common effluent treatment and industry-specific requirements. He said while exports have been growing over 60 per cent, the domestic segment has been growing at 15 per cent for the past three years. He said the aim was to touch 20 per cent in the domestic segment and 100 per cent in the export market.

He said Chennai and Gurgaon near New Delhi were the other two major auto hubs and if the same kind of facility was offered in these two places, `India will become the major auto hub for the global market'.

Quoting the McKinsey report, Mr Dua said by 2015 the production would go up to $25 billion. "If this happens, then India would become the largest auto component and automobile manufacturer in the world''.

Mr Ajay said the Central Government has contributed Rs 50 crore for the project. The remaining amount is likely to be chipped in by the industry and the PCMC under whose jurisdiction the auto cluster is being developed. The entire project, to be completed in three phases, would need an investment of Rs 118 crore, he added.

Mr Baba N. Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Forge Ltd, said the global OEMs have identified eight low-cost countries to whom they could outsource their products. India is one among them and about $375 billion is the value estimated for the products that are to be outsourced to these eight countries.

Mr Pawar said PCMC should give top priority for the infrastructure in the city. He said the auto cluster would become the backbone for other related industries and added that atleast three more special economic zones, in the fields of auto, IT and agro-processing, should be set up in Pune.

`27 clusters to be developed in Tenth Plan'

Mr Ajay Dua, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, said sanction has been given for two more auto clusters to be set up at Pitampura in Madhya Pradesh and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.

Initially, 27 clusters in different fields would be taken up for development in the Tenth Plan and the schemes would be implemented through Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) with an allocation of Rs 925 crore. The clusters that have been approved in 2003-04 include the textiles cluster in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu and chemical cluster at Vapi in Gujarat.

During 2004-05, approval has been given for coir cluster in Aalapuzha, Kerala, metallurgical cluster in Jaipur, Orissa, chemical cluster in Ankleshwar and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, auto ancillary cluster in Chennai, cereals, pulses and staples cluster in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

He said textile clusters at Ludhiana in Punjab, Panipat in Haryana, Ichalkaranji in Maharashtra have been identified apart from foundry cluster in Belgaum in Karnataka, foundry park in Howrah in West Bengal, pump, motor and foundry cluster in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The other clusters include the marble cluster in Kishangarh, Rajasthan, machine tools cluster in Bangalore, gem and jewellery cluster in Surat (Gujarat), pharma cluster in Hyderabad, Ispat Bhoomi cluster in Raipur (Chhattisgarh), leather cluster in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and Ambur in Tamil Nadu, multi-industry cluster in Haldia (West Bengal) and rubber cluster in Howrah (West Bengal).

He said two more clusters namely the ayurvedic cluster in Thrissur (Kerala) and light engineering cluster in Faridabad (Haryana) have been approved during the current financial year.