Glass company Asahi India Glass Ltd on Friday said it would invest Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) in setting up a plant to manufacture automotive safety glass in Chennai.
The plant, the company's third one, would initially have a capacity of over 5,00,000 laminated windshields and would tentatively cost over Rs 50 crore to be funded primarily internally, a company press release said in New Delhi.
"The company has two existing plants -- an automotive glass plant in Rewari (Haryana) and a float glass plant in Taloja (Maharashtra)," it said.
With the coming up of the new plant, scheduled to be commissioned by October 2004, the combined capacity to manufacture laminated windsheilds would be over 1.70 million.
In addition, the company has existing capacity at its Rewari facility for 1.20 million car sets of tempered glass.
The proposed plant would cater to the existing customers in South India. These include Hyundai Motors, Toyota Kirloskar, Ford India, Hindustan Motors and Volvo India.
"Besides the company will be seeking to address some export markets using the new facility," it added.
Commenting on the upcoming plans for the new facility, Sanjay Labroo, managing director and CEO of Asahi India said, "This new plant is a significant step for us and I am confident this investment will reap big benefits for Asahi India."
