Honda starts operations at Rajasthan plant

Tapukara (Rajasthan), Feb 14 (IANS) Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) Tuesday started operations at the second unit of its Tapukara plant in Rajasthan, which has come up with an investment of more than Rs.1,000 crore, and is aimed at doubling the plant's annual production capacity to 1.2 million units.

'The plant initially started the operations on July 11, 2011 with annual production capacity of 0.6 million units,' said N.K. Rattan, vice president, sales and marketing, HMSI.

'To meet growing demand of customers, second phase with 0.6 million units capacity is started today (Tuesday) making the total capacity to 1.2 million. With this, we shall be able to service our customers of Activa and CB Shine in a more speedy manner.'

According to the company, it will manufacture Activa scooter, CB Twister and CB Shine motorcycles from this plant, in addition to its existing Manesar plant.

The company had earlier announced to open a third plant at Bangalore which is scheduled to become operational by the first half of 2013, with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million units.

'This capacity expansion plan will increase HMSI's total annual production capacity to 4 million units, including 1.6 million units at the first plant, 1.2 million units at the second plant and 1.2 million units at the third plant,' the company said in a statement.