‘A dream come true’

For J Anand of Jayem Automotives Ltd it was a ‘dream come true’ to have the Chairman of Tata Group Ratan Tata and his successor Pallonji Cyrus Mistry visit his facility at Ondipudur in Coimbatore.

Though rumour mills have been doing the rounds the last couple of days about Ratan Tata’s visit here, Anand and his team preferred to keep it private.

The word, however, spread like wildfire and people thronged the place to get a glimpse of the Tata chief and Anand was compelled to share details of Ratan Tata’s visit.

While maintaining that ‘it was a private visit’, Anand told

Business Line that he meets the Tata chief quite often, but to have him visit this automotive hub was more than a ‘dream’. “I still cannot believe it, having a person of his stature visiting our city. My team is thrilled. My engineers got to meet and have a word or two with him,” he said, sounding elatedafter they duo left the city.

Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry landed at the Peelamedu airport in a private carrier at 9 a.m. Anand confirmed that they came with the Head of Engineering, but was reluctant to share more details.

It is learnt that Jayem Automotives has come up with a new engineering design, for which the testing was done at Kari Motor Speedway in Chettipalayam. Ratan Tata and his team along with Anand and few others are understood to have visited the track for testing the new design.

Sources said that India’s ace Formula One driver Narain Karthikeyan was behind the wheel.

When Narain was contacted, he confirmed Tata’s visit, but refrained from sharing more details about Tata’s visit or the project.

They left by the same aircraft at around 4 p.m., Anand said.