Falcon Tyres to expand Mysore facility

Falcon Tyres, part of the Rs 3,000-crore Ruia Group, intends on spending over Rs 800 crore this fiscal to undertake an expansion of its Mysore unit and establish another greenfield facility in Uttarakhand, which will hike the tyre maker's production capacity to 2.3 million pieces per month. The firm, along with its subsidiary Monotona Tyres, currently produces 1.3 million pieces every month. Subsequent to the expansion, which is likely to cost at least Rs 300 crore, monthly production is expected to touch 1.8 million pieces.

At the same time, another newly-formed subsidiary of Falcon Tyres is to set up a new factory at Uttarakhand, with an initial monthly capacity of 500,000 pieces. This new facility is to entail an investment of about Rs 500 crore.

“The Uttarakhand plant will supply to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) such as Hero Honda, which have their factory in the area. I am hopeful that the plant will be operational by the end of this fiscal,” Ruia Group chairman Pawan Kumar Ruia said, on the sidelines of Dunlop India's annual general meeting, here today.

With a total capacity of 2.3 million pieces per month, Ruia claimed, the group would become the biggest manufacturer of two and three-wheeler tyres globally. On the status of Dunlop India, the country's oldest tyre manufacturer which the Ruia group acquired in 2005, he said that production would be stablised at 30 tonnes per day and subsequently, would be taken up to 60-70 tonnes per day by the end of the fiscal.

“At Dunlop India, we hope to achieve a turnover of Rs 550 crore this fiscal,” Ruia added. In 2009-10, the firm's income had stood at Rs 180.70 crore.