Caparo Group setting up Rs120 crore components unit for Tata Nano

Mumbai: UK-based Caparo Group is setting up a Rs120-crore components facility at Singur to supply sheet metal and vehicle frames for Tata Motors' Nano - the world's cheapest car.

Caparo Group, owned by NRI industrialist Swraj Paul, is a key vendor for Tata Motors' Nano project. The car, priced at Rs1 lakh, is due for commercial launch later this year.

The Caparo facility will supply 12 to 15 per cent of the Nano components, including sheet metals and vehicle frame, Swaraj Paul's son Angad Paul, CEO of Caparo Group, said.
 
He said Caparo might have to increase sales 10-fold to enhance margins, adding that the Tatas also plan to make 250,000 cars a year initially and may ramp up the capacity to a million.

With the Nano already unveiled and Tata Motors taking up other issues with the West Bengal government, component manufacturers have now to gear up to meet the Nano deadline, Paul Junior, said.

"We have to be ready before the Tatas are ready," Paul, who is a member of the business delegation accompanying British prime minister Gordon Brown, said on the sidelines of a meeting.

The Caparo facility would supply 12 to 15 per cent of the Nano components, including sheet metals and vehicle frame, Paul said.
 
Caparo Group is planning to raise its investment and exposure in India to achieve an over six-fold increase in turnover to $1 billion within the next ten years, he said.

Visiting British prime minister Gordon Brown formally inaugurated the group's Rs83-crore auto parts manufacturing facility at Greater Noida, which caters to automakers such as Honda.