Caparo India keen to develop Indian aerospace sector

Chennai: Caparo India, part of the Caparo Group owned by Lord Swraj Paul, is keen to develop the Indian aerospace sector in a big way, a top company official said here on Thursday.

"We are focusing on the automotive sector, trying to attract aerospace customers by exporting to them. Our ultimate goal is to bring aeroplane manufacturers to India," Angad Paul, CEO, Caparo Group and son of Lord Swraj Paul told reporters here.

Paul said India would become a hub for automobile and aerospace manufacturing in 10-15 years and would overtake Japan. "We are here to serve the OEM's coming here. The minimum base of full capacity of the plants will be about Rs 1,000 crore worth of sales. The Sriperumbudur plant would reach that capacity by 2009," he said.

Paul made these comments after signing an MoU with the Tamil Nadu government for setting up a state-of-art manufacturing unit in Oragadam, 30 km from here, at a cost of Rs300 crore.

"We want to use our knowledge base for both automobile and aerospace sectors, using our own technology," Paul said.

According to Paul, the company is investing Rs300 crore in the first phase for manufacturing tubular parts for automotive and aerospace, automotive braking systems, fasteners and composite materials and testing at the Oragadam unit.

The company turnover is 50:50 on both sectors, Paul said. Though the aerospace segment contributed small numbers in production, its high value contributed towards the turnover to the extent of 50 per cent. The Group wants to concentrate more on aerospace, he said.

Caparo has invested Rs700 crore in the state so far and further investments may still be made, Paul added.

"The plants give us an opportunity to bring more investments and capabilities into Tamil Nadu. We are expanding our two wheeler component segment and are further using all our processes for the automobile plant base to cater to the aeropace sector," Paul said. He pointed out that the forgings plant at the Sriperumbudur facility would be also used for serving the aerospace sector.

The Sriperumbudur facility, set up on 120 acres, has four projects- stamping, world class R&D centre and tool room, aluminium foundry and forging.

The Group already has three entities in India: Caparo Maruti Ltd - a Joint Venture with Maruti Udyog, Caparo Engineering India Private Ltd (CEIPL) and Caparo India Pvt Ltd.