Tamil Nadu to step up vehicle production capacity to 5 million by 2020

The state has become the home of seven out of the top 20 auto majors

The Tamil Nadu government has set a target to increase its automobile production capacity to five million units by 2020. The government also said in the next two years it expected Rs 1 lakh crore investment commitments, and a major chunk of it would come from the automobile industry.

In his address at AutoServe 2014, organised by the CII here today, industries minister P Thangamani said Tamil Nadu had an installed capacity of more than three million units (for automobile manufacturing), contributing almost 20 per cent to the total installed capacity in India.

“Our aim is to make Chennai as the World’s largest automobile manufacturing hub with a production capacity of five million vehicles by 2020,” he said. The additional capacity would be through brownfield and greenfield expansion, he said, without disclosing the names of the companies planning to invest in the state.

According to the minister, Tamil Nadu is one of the top five auto clusters and home to seven auto majors  -- Daimler, Ford, BMW, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Renault and Nissan.

Currently, Chennai has an installed capacity to produce, 13,80,000 cars and about 3,61,000 commercial vehicles per annum. In other words, Chennai has a capacity to produce three cars every minute and one commercial vehicle every 75 seconds. The State also houses earth moving vehicles manufactuers including Komatsu and Caterpillar.

"We are very confident that in the next 2-3 years, the state can attract investments worth over Rs one lakh crore in manufacturing sector, especially from automobile companies," said the Minister.

He noted to attract the autosector, the State Government has introduced 'Tamil Nadu Automobile and Autocomponents Policy 2014".

The policy will focus on further development of automobile and components industry, which generated around five lakh jobs in and around Chennai alone, said the State Minister.