Bangalore, June 3 (IANS) German industrial equipment maker Mann-Hummel GmbH (M&H) is expanding its India operations to supply light weight filters to automobile and industrial manufacturers, a top official said here Wednesday.
“As part of our expansion plans in India, we are setting up a second plant at Nalagarh in Himachal Pradesh to manufacture a range of filter systems using plastics for automotive and industrial applications,” M&H board member Manfred Wolf told reporters.

The 1.83-billion-euro (Rs.122-billion/$2.6-million) firm formed a joint venture with another German major Bosch India (MHBI) in 2006 to set up its first plant at Tumkur, about 70 km from here, to manufacture filters systems for industrial applications and construction equipment sectors.

The 68-year-old M&H has also set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in India in 2008 to manufacture and distribute filters systems in the replacement market and source automotive components for its global market.

The Tumkur plant, set up at a cost of Rs.66 crore (euro 10 million euro), is a common manufacturing facility for the company’s Indian subsidiary and the joint venture with Bosch India. It has an annual installed capacity of 10 million filter elements.

The Nalagarh plant, to be commissioned later this year in the tax-haven Solan district, will also have an installed capacity of 10 million filter elements per annum.

“We propose to invest an additional 12-15 million euros (Rs.80 crore-Rs.100 crore) for expanding our India operations, including the Nalagarh plant,” Wolf noted.

The air filters are also supplied to Bosch India for its automotive components.

To design products for the domestic market and provide customised solutions to Indian and global automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), M&H has set up a research and development (R&D) centre in Bangalore at an investment of Rs.10 crore.

“We have supplied low-cost air filters to Maruti Suzuki’s passenger car A-Star model. Made of resilient plastic material, the air filters are lighter than those made of aluminium. We have developed similar light weight filters for trucks of Tata Motors,” M&H Filter Ltd managing director Hans Georg Hummel said.

The company has set an ambitious sales target of 30-50 million euros (Rs.20-33 crore) by 2014-15 from its India operations as against 6 million euros (Rs.4 crore) achieved in 2008.

Joint managing director Ajith Raj Nair said the market size of filter systems in India for automotive and industrial applications was estimated to be Rs.600-800 crore per annum in the organised sector.