Wheels India To Set Up New Plant Near Chennai To Serve Export Markets

TVS Group-promoted Wheels India Ltd. is setting up a manufacturing plant near Chennai at an investment of Rs 140 crore, Chairman S Ram said at the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.

"The company expects to start production of cast aluminium wheels for the export markets from a new plant near Chennai," Ram said at the Wheels India AGM.

Wheels India saw reasonable growth in demand from the light commercial vehicle segment in 2018-19, Ram said, adding that he is hopeful of the trend to continue in 2019-20 on the back of a normal monsoon this year.

The company has also set up a research and development centre at the existing manufacturing unit in Padi, Chennai. "We have set up a state-of-the-art, world-class R&D testing facility where we will also offer product testing services to companies in addition to the products we manufacture," said Ram.

Wheels India also expects strong growth that it witnessed in the windmill segment in the previous fiscal to continue in the current financial year as well. There was also a strong demand for air suspension systems for buses in 2018-19 and this trend is expected to continue in 2019-20 as well.

But Ram sees FY20 as challenging, in terms of demand from commercial vehicles, construction equipment and mining trucks, due to a slowdown in major customer industry segements. "We will focus, internally, on reducing costs and rationalising operations in light of these challenges," he said.

On Tuesday, Wheels India shares rose 1.12 percent to Rs 595.40 apiece on the BSE while the benchmark Sensex shed 1.66 percent to end the day at 36,958.16 points.