Investing Rs 100cr on two new plants in FY13: Sona Group

Auto component maker Sona Group is setting up two new plants this fiscal at an investment of Rs 100 crore and said it will also set up a dedicated facility to supply parts to Maruti Suzuki's upcoming Gujarat plant.

"Our investment plans for this year is Rs 100 crore. This will go into mainly for setting up of two new plants at Dharuhera," Sona group Chairman Surinder Kapur told reporters here today on the sidelines of annual convention of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA).

The first plant will be operationalised in the next month,while the second one will be ready by the end of this year, he added."The plants will be mainly for setting up machineries for backward integration and die cast operations," Kapur said.

The group, which is a major supplier to Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), also said it would set up a dedicated plant at Gujarat where the car-maker is investing Rs 4,000 crore on a new manufacturing facility.

"Whenever they move to Gujarat and we will set up a dedicated facility for Maruti," Kapur said. Asked about the impact of the month-long lockout at the Manesar plant of the car-maker, he said: "Out of our total sales, 10-12% come from MSI. So we have been impacted to that much since the trouble began".

He, however, hoped that by mid September, MSI should reach to the desired production level so that "by the end of this year there are no shortfall in our total sales". As per its website, the Sona Group has an overall revenue of USD 800 million with over 16 plants across India, three in Germany and one in the US.

On the overall market conditions, Kapur said: "We are expecting the automotive industry to grow by 7-8%. On a consolidated basis our company should grow by 10-12% this fiscal".

The other clients of the company such as M&M, Hyundai, General Motors, Ford, Fiat and Tata are doing good, he added. Terming the slowdown witnessed in the industry as short term, Kapur the group was not deferring its investment plans.