Sindhu Bhattacharya

New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki has decided to develop a mega car terminal at Mundra Port, in keeping with its ambitious export plans over the next few years.

The country’s largest car maker is eyeing four-fold growth in exports to two lakh units within the next two years and has been thinking of getting a dedicated mega terminal for the purpose for quite some time now. It has already developed the ‘A-Star’ as a car primarily meant for exports to Europe and the creation of a dedicated terminal was being seen as a necessity to execute large export orders to Europe.

At present, Maruti exports vehicles from the Mumbai port after their pre-delivery inspection is conducted at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust but after this new facility comes up, cars can get the inspection done at Mundra itself.

Maruti’s managing director Shinzo Nakanishi and his counterpart at Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Gautam S Adani on Thursday signed an agreement to build this Rs 100 crore project. While Mundra will bring in Rs 60 crore for setting up port infrastructure, Maruti would park the remaining Rs 40 crore in building the inspection centre.

Maruti will commence export operations at Mundra Port from January next year but would continue to use the Mumbai port in the interim. The new terminal, spread over 7,500 acres, will have a car stockyard spread over 35 acres and a dedicated “buffer area” for cars to be parked just before loading on the ships.

Source : DNA