Bosch Electrical Drives India, which makes electrical motors for automobiles, has expanded its production capacity with a larger factory near Chennai.

Addressing media persons to formally announce the inauguration of its 9,000 sq. m factory at Oragadam, the automobile manufacturing hub to the west of the city, its Managing Director, Subramanya Ullal said the unit is about one-third larger than its earlier facility.

The new factory, which it started in March this year, employs over 260 people including 130 workers in production, and will nearly double its work force to about 500 soon. More than 90 per cent of the shop floor workers are women.

The production facility is on 10 acres which offers more scope for expansion. It has invested over Rs 35 crore in land and building, about Rs 85 crore in machinery over the last four years, which have been shifted from the earlier rented facility to the south of Chennai. The company plans to invest an additional Rs 25 crore.

The Bosch Electrical Drives’ sales were about Rs 157 crore last year and will reach about Rs 200 crore in the current year. The market for electrical drives in India is estimated at Rs 800 crore a year. Its motors are used by leading automobile manufacturers including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault Nissan, Mahindra and Volkswagen.

Manfred Baden, Executive Vice-President, Electrical Drives, Robert Bosch GmbH, said the €52-billion multinational company in automobile components, energy and building and consumers goods business, sees India as a key market in the Asean region.

>balaji.ar@thehindu.co.in

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