Azad plans bus plant at Hosur

Azad Group, the Bangalore-based luxury bus maker, is setting up a bus manufacturing unit at Hosur near Bangalore. The plant, with an annual capacity to manufacture 1,000 buses, will see an investment of Rs 20 crore.

The plant will be operational in July this year, said B S Chadha, Chairman, Azad Group. "At Hosur plant we will build bus bodies for other bus chassis makers like Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland. As regards to Volvo buses, we will not produce them in this plant and all our existing and future customers will be serviced through our joint venture with Volvo Bus Corp," he told reporters here today.

He said the company is presently producing Volvo buses at Bangalore and with the opening of a new plant at Hoskote, it will stop building them at their other facility.

"Presently, luxury buses are built on truck chassis, but we have started selling buses built on the bus chassis. We have already sold 1,600 such buses. It is a very big market and growing. We will address this market jointly with Volvo," Chadha added.