The tripartite JV among Bajaj-Nissan-Renault is facing a roadblock in the way of land acquisition. Bajaj is taking care of the production of the cars and is facing tough time to acquire land for this project. Till then, the project will be carried out in some place out of Pune. The car is to hit the roads by 2012 and the facility in Chakan is short of 100 acres in addition to the existing 250acres of land. The plants in Aurangabad and Pantnagar are operational at full swing.
The proposed target is 4 lakh units a month during this calendar year. Currently the company has the capacity of producing 350000 vehicles per month of which 50000 are three wheelers and the rest being motorcycles. The products coming out of these plants will be the bread winner brands – Pulsar, Discover, RE sportbike and a three wheeler. The export market for Bajaj was also exemplary – 158000 units- diverted to Egypt, Peru, Tanzania and other African nations. The company foresees a growth of 15% in its export market.
Further there will be an allocation of Rs50 crore for R&D during this year, backed up by 650 engineers at Pune. In all there will be 5 platforms for commercial vehicles and three of them are already in operation while the remaining two are expected by this quarter. In addition, there will be a new platform venture on four wheeler.