Bosch to invest Rs 800 cr over 2 years

The Robert Bosch Group plans to invest Rs 800 crore over the next two years in its Indian subsidiaries ? Motor Industries Co Ltd (Mico), Robert Bosch India, Bosch Chassis Systems India (formerly Kalyani Brakes) and Bosch Rexroth India.

The group invested Rs 400 crore in India last year. With this, the cumulative investments in the Indian ventures will touch Rs 1,200 crore over a three-year period, starting 2005.

The money will be spent mainly to augment the production capacities at its plants in Bangalore, Nashik, Jaipur and Naganathapura. While Rs 200 crore will be spent in Bangalore, about Rs 600 crore will go into its Nashik plant and Rs 60 crore in Naganathapura, said Mico's joint managing director V K Vishwanathan.

He has been elevated to the post of senior vice president and has moved out of India on deputation to head the company's North American operations in Detroit.

Addressing his last press meet in India through a tele-conference on Thursday, he said that the company's software division in Bangalore will also be expanded further by increasing its headcount from the present 3,000 to 4,000 by end of 2006. The division develops software for the group's in-house requirements. Last year the division added 1,000 software engineers, he said.

A large part of the investment will go into setting up its facilities for the manufacture of common rail direct injection (CRDi) systems, a key component for the new-generation diesel engines.

In 2004, the Bosch group announced investments of upto Rs 1,000 crore in the Indian market. Hence, the total investments the company will make in India add up to Rs 1,800 crore during the five-year period ending-2008.

Of the funds pumped in, about Rs 550 crore will be invested in the large-scale production of high-pressure common-rail systems.

Apart from this, the investment will be utilised for ramping up the capacity, routine capital and maintenance expenditure and developing new R&D infrastructure across the group's subsidiaries in the country, he said.

Bosch started production of injector components for the common rail system in Mico's Nashik plant towards the end of last year.

The manufacture of the complete injectors will follow in 2007 in Bangalore, and the first common rail high-pressure pumps will be produced in mid-2006.

Viswanathan said that the Bosch Group had recently increased its equity stake to 80 per cent in Kalyani Brakes and renamed the subsidiary as Bosch Chassis Systems India.

It manufactures hydraulic brakes for passenger cars, two-wheelers, three-wheelers and tractors.

CRDi is the new state-of-the-art diesel technology used in premium cars worldwide and is 15-20 per cent more expensive than conventional diesel engines.

These engines are based on direct injection technology and have "rails" which inject pressurised fuel directly into the engine which significantly improves the engine efficiency and reduces noise and vibration. Robert Bosch is the pioneer of CRDi technology and is also the world's largest suppliers of automotive technology with patented products in fuel injection technology and a global leadership in car-related patents.

Worldwide, Robert Bosch caters to over 75 per cent of the CRDi market, followed by Siemens VDO, Delphi (Lucas) and Denso.

The software division has been providing software solutions in the field of automotive, business, industrial and security domains for Bosch units worldwide including Germany, Austria, the US, Japan, France, Singapore and Malaysia.