The Uttarakhand Government announced yesterday that India's largest sports utility vehicles manufacturer, Mahindra & Mahindra was planning to establish a Rs 3,000 crore manufacturing facility in the State, PTI reported.
According to the report, Pawan Goenka, President (Automotive and Farm Equipment Sectors), M&M had a lengthy discussion with with Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on April 26, 2012. Mahindra is contemplating on setting up a manufacturing unit with a production capacity of 2.5 lakh units annually, quoting a government statement, the report said.
Regarding that, the company had sought a 500 acre land for the plant and Rs 200 crore for the supplier unit. During the discussions, Bahuguna said the government would try to provide land to M&M at Sitargunj for the project. When contacted, an M&M spokesperson told the agency: "Goenka met the CM of state to discuss potential future investment in the state. The discussion was preliminary and we cannot comment on the details".
The development comes at a time when M&M threatened to stop further investments in Maharashtra, unhappy over the state government's change in VAT refund policy, the report noted. It may be recalled that earlier in February this year, Goenka had said that M&M may not go ahead with the next phase of investment to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore at its Chakan facility in Maharashtra as the state government had decided to give VAT refund only on vehicles sold in the state and not on all the products made there.
