[Tushar]

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has inaugurated its fourth manufacturing plant in India and the plant will exclusively produce automatic scooters. The plant is located at Vithalapur (Mandal taluk, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat) in India. The company has made an investment of INR 1,100 crore for the plant which has been setup in 13 months. Honda’s 22 suppliers have invested an additional INR 1,100 crore as they set up ancillary plants in Gujarat.

Spread over 250 acres, operations of Honda’s fourth plant have been scheduled in two phases, the first of which starts today. The first production line has an annual production capacity of 6 lakh units. This production line will be followed by a 2nd line in mid-2016 that will produce an additional 6 lakh units. In all, Honda will manufacture 1.2 million automatic scooters annually from its fourth plant.

Honda’s total two-wheeler production capacity in India is expected to increase by 26% to 5.8 million units by the end of 2016. This number includes 1.6 million units from its plant in Haryana, 1.2 million units from its second plant in Rajasthan, 1.8 million units from its third plant in Karnataka and 1.2 million units from the fourth plant in Gujarat.

Honda claims that the plant will generate 3,000 jobs directly and 6,000 additional jobs through suppliers who have setup plants of their own in Gujarat. The plant features a fully-automated press shop, vacuum cooling technology and nitrogen pressurization in die-casting, use of digital eye technology in various processes and traceability of in-house parts with QR codes in the machine shop.

Over 1/3rd of the plant's total area is a dedicated green zone and the facility has a zero liquid discharge plan with a rain-water harvesting system as well.