more-in Japanese construction equipment firm Kobelco is expanding the capacity of its Indian subsidiary’s manufacturing plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The process of adding more facilities at the excavator plant that was inaugurated six years ago comes on the back of a strong pick up in the demand for the products, senior executives of Kobelco Construction Equipment India Pvt Ltd said here on Friday. Speaking at the launch of a new excavator, Managing Director and CEO of the subsidiary Yutaka Goto and Advisor (India and South Asia) Vikram Sharma said the company was investing on new facilities and laying emphasis on measures to improve productivity. These resulted in the plant making 160 units a month now as against 120 units about six months ago. The plan is to take the capacity from the existing 2,000 units a year to 3,000 units in about 18 months. Depending on the consumer demand, the company may consider doubling the capacity in three-four years. Kobelco has invested around ?170 crore on the Sri City plant and the expansion programme is likely to entail an investment of ?200 more, Mr.Sharma said. In 2016-17, Kobelco Construction Equipment India sold 1,600 excavators in the country and exported a few hundreds. A total of 192 machines were sold in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, said Rajiv Sanghvi, Executive Director of Automotive Manufacturers Pvt Ltd that represents Kobelco in the two States. The new Generation 10 model excavator, in two variants, is in the 20-24 tonne segment and offers improved fuel economy and higher productivity, Kobelco executives said.

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