Looking forward to growing demand and upcoming festive season, leading carmaker Tata Motors aims to cross 5 lakh units production mark by October this year at the Sanand plant in Gujarat. The company has achieved 100% utilisation of the plant and running three shift to meet the demand. “The plant has so far rolled out over 4,50,000 units since inception and is among fastest expanding plants of Tata Motors. The plant is running in its full capacity and we are aiming to reach production mark of 5 lakh units by October this year. A lean manufacturing process plays a key role in our growth strategy enabling the Sanand plant to contribute around 60% of the overall passenger vehicle (PV) production,” said Mayank Pareek, president of PV business unit at Tata Motors.

Spread over 1,100 acres of land, the Tata Motors’ Sanand plant has played an important role in the development of the automobile industry in Gujarat. Started with Nano production in 2010, the plant today has emerged as a multi-model facility. Tata Motors has so far invested about Rs 4,500 crore at the Sanand plant. The company is also producing electric variant of Tigor model for the EESL since third quarter of financial year 2017-18. The company had qualified as L1 bidder and won the tender of 10,000 electric cars floated by EESL in September 2017 and so far it has delivered 250 EVs in March 2018 to the EESL.

Talking about future plan for EV, Pareek said, “We have already started producing EV for the government. Our decision depends on the government’s policies for the electric vehicles. Moreover, charging infrastructure and affordable pricing of the EV models are also challenges. These are the areas we need to work out first before taking any decision.”

While the plant in Sanand was set up specially for Nano, the company has gradually decreased the production of it and stared producing Tiago, and Tigor models. It is also rumoured that the company is considering to shut production of Nano. However, officials have refuted the speculations and said that production of Nano will continue.

Pareek said, “It is a fact that we have decreased the Nano production but as of now there is no plan to stop producing Nano. The Sanand plant has developed from being a single model to a multi-model plant producing 21 variants. The plant plays a key role to meet the demand for Tiago and Tigor.”

Tata Motors plans to bring around 10-12 new products in passenger vehicles segment in the next five years. The new products, to be developed on two new platforms — Alpha and Omega — will help the company to have presence in over 90% of the Indian passenger vehicles market. The company will kick off the launch of new products with SUV Harrier in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal.

“In the next five years, the Indian automotive market will continue to evolve with many segments and sub-segments emerging. Our plan is to be present in existing segments and create new ones. On the two new modular platforms that we have, there could be around 10 to 12 new models in the next five years,” said Pareek.

The company is also producing three different variant of petrol engines in Sanand plant and aiming to increase the production in near future. Rajesh Khatri, head of manufacturing operations, Tata Motors said, “We are at present producing about 500 engines per day and we will increase it to 600 units a day in coming days.” The Sanand plant has been awarded CII’s GreenCo Platinum Certification in June 2018. It is a zero discharge plant and has a systematic hazardous waste disposal process. The plant is using 30-35% of renewable energy from total power consumption. The plant has commissioned 2MW of roof top solar panels and off-site wind power mills with capacity of 9MW.