OK Play drives into e-rickshaw segment with E-Raaja

OK Play India, the plastic auto components maker, today announced its foray into the e-rickshaw segment, with the launch of its the E-Raaja priced at Rs 1.15-1.25 lakh (inclusive of taxes, Delhi). The company plans to produce the e-rickshaws from its two manufacturing units - one in Sohna (Haryana) to cater to the North Indian market and the second one in Ranipet (Tamil Nadu) to cater to South India. It is making an initial investment of Rs 40 crore.

"We are extremely happy to launch the E-Raaja at a time when India is moving towards a pollution-free vehicular transport solution," OK Play India Managing Director Rajan Handa said in a statement. In the initial phase, the firm will simultaneously launch their e-rickshaws in North and South India, he added. The production capacity of both the plants stands at 3,00,000 e-rickshaws per year.

The ICAT-approved E-Raaja is indigenously designed and developed, and an outcome of more than two years of in-house R&D by a dedicated research and design team, Handa added. Bullish on the segment, he said: "By conservative estimates, there are over 10 million cycle rickshaws and 7.5 million auto-rickshaws in the country, which could potentially be replaced over a period of time. Thus, there is a huge market opportunity..." Unlike most other e-rickshaws in the country, which have about 95 percent Chinese components, he claimed that OK Play's E-Raaja is completely made in India.

On the company's decision to enter the new segment, Handa said that for over two decades now, OK Play has been ingeniously using the roto-moulded plastics process and has the expertise to create world-class, environment-friendly automotive plastic products. Hence, the decision to choose e-rickshaws to foray into automobile industry by launching zero-pollution, plastic body e-rickshaws was quite obvious, he added.