Construction equipment major JCB on Thursday said it has opened its newest factory in India set up at an investment of 100 million pounds (nearly Rs 995 crore), with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson inaugurating the facility.
The plant located at Vadodara in Gujarat will fabricate parts for global production lines and will be capable of processing 85,000 tonnes of steel annually, JCB said in a statement.
The company, which started manufacturing operations in India in 1979 with its first factory in Ballabgarh near Delhi, currently has six factories in the country at locations including Jaipur and Pune.
JCB Chairman Lord Bamford said in its first year of full production, JCB India manufactured just 39 machines and ‘by next year will have made a total of half a million’.
‘This country is now a major engineering power and being here has transformed our business. It has been a fabulous success, with so much more potential for growth. Such progress has only been possible by continued investment and the opening of our new Gujarat facility is an important step in growing our business here and around the world,’ he said.
India has been JCB’s biggest market every year since 2007 and one in two of every construction machine sold in India today is made by JCB, the company said.
Commenting on the new unit, JCB India CEO and MD Deepak Shetty said, ‘This new facility will create around 1,200 direct jobs when complete and thousands more in the supply chain.’ JCB India said its new plant will be a gender-diverse manufacturing facility employing 50 per cent women. The company has also set up a skills centre at the plant where young professionals will be trained to work on diverse job roles in manufacturing.