Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel inaugurated Ford India’s second car manufacturing facility in Sanand on the outskirts of Ahmedabad on Thursday. Speaking at the inauguration function, Patel claimed that Gujarat has become a global gateway of India in the auto engineering sector and was poised to increase production of auto and auto components from the current 3.7 per cent to 10 per cent by 2020.
Referring to heavy investments by auto giants like Ford, Suzuki, Honda, General Motors, Tata Motors as well as leading auto component makers, the Gujarat CM termed the Sanand-Becharaji-Halol belt of Gujarat as ‘Detroit of India’. She said that Gujarat is fast emerging as one of the biggest auto hubs in the Asia Pacific region.
“It is difficult to run a house for a small farmer considering that the size of farms is decreasing fast. Industrial investments in the region will give economic opportunities to people. It was the vision of former Gujarat CM Narendra Modi to attract investments in the State,” she said.
The state-of-the-art car plant built at a cost of $1 billion and spread across 460 acres of land is just besides the world’s cheapest car manufacturing facility of Tata Motors. The facility at Sanand has 95 per cent automation in body shop division, while the plant has 437 robots performing assembly operations. The plant will employ 2,500 people while it will generate employment for more than 7,500 through ancillary units. Already 19 vendors have set up shop at the vendor park.
“The commissioning of Sanand plant will double our annual capacity in India to 6, 10,000 engines and 4, 40,000 vehicles. The operation in Sanand will be able to produce 2, 40,000 vehicles and 2, 70,000 engines,” said Ford Motor’s Global CEO Mark Fields, adding that the company has taken note of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ slogan and in line with it Ford will triple its export from India.