TVS ties up with Mahabharat Motors in West Bengal

After TATA Motors, the Chennai based TVS group has started looking eastward and officially made an entry into West Bengal through a tie-up with the Mahabharat Motors Manufacturing Pvt Ltd.

A MoU was signed between the owners of the two companies for a contract manufacturing arrangement here on Wednesday. Under the MoU, Mahabharat Motors will assemble the agreed products as contract manufacturer. The products to be manufactured will be agreed before. Also, the TVS motorcycles will be manufactured at the base station of Mahabharat Motors, with its assistance, located on the outskirts of Kolkata.

“We needed a base here and for that we plan to tie-up with Mahabharat Motors,” said Chairman and Managing Director of the TVS Motors, Venu Srinivasan. Our company (TVS) has planned major forays into the North East, Jharkhand and Orissa, he added later.

After a meeting with the Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the State Secretariat, Venu Srinivasan told the reporters that the company would enhance its share in the eastern region within five years.

Twenty per cent of TVS’s revenue comes from sales in the eastern and north-eastern region. But after coming into contract and making manufacturing base here, this figure is expected to go up to 25 per cent within the next five years, he said.

TVS Motor Company will introduce its world-class quality control standards here and also will provide technical support for the factory construction comprising master planning etc. Srinivasan said that one lakh units of the 150cc capacity TVS motorcycle would be manufactured here annually and its production would start from June 2009.

TVS Motor Co. presently has three manufacturing bases in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh.

TVS Motor Company

TVS Iyengar and Sons Limited is the holding company for the TVS Group of companies founded by TV Sundram Iyengar in 1911. The company manufactures almost all types of automotive components, two wheelers, and a few other industrial products. It has also its leg into the financial service sector.

TVS Motors Company is, at present, the third largest two wheeler company in India with sales of 107,117 units (as per the figure of June 2007). Also, the company exported 9,133 units of two wheelers in June 2007.

Mahabharat Motors

Mahabharat Motors is the joint venture project between the three parties--Salim Group of India, Dalerna Limited (Universal Success Group of Singapore), and Zongshen Industrial Group of China.

In February 2006, Mr. Bhattacharjee had laid the foundation for the Mahabharat Motors project in Uluberia, but in due course of time, the deal with China was being scrapped.

This will be the first Multinational two-Wheeler integrated Manufacturing Company in West Bengal.