Thaindian News

Kolkata, May 24 (IANS) Monotona Tyres Ltd became a subsidiary of Falcon Tyres Ltd, manufacturers of two-wheeler tyres, from Friday, a company statement said here Monday.
Monotona supplies high-quality tyres to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) like Bajaj Auto and also exports substantial number of tyres to Dubai, Egypt, Guatemala, Nigeria, Sudan and other countries.

The company has production capacity of 300,000 tyres and 500,000 tubes a month for two- and three-wheelers and light commercial vehicles (LCV) at its plant in Wada, about 85 km from Mumbai.

Monotona Tyres was acquired by the city-based Ruia Group in August 2006.

At present, the capacity of the plant is being augmented by 500,000 tyres and 500,000 tubes per month along with a co-generation plant of 10 megawatt.

Falcon Tyres has a technical tie-up with Sumitomo Corporation of Japan and markets its products under the Dunlop brand and henceforth “in the replacement market Monotona products also will be marketed as Dunlop”.

“Now with Falcon Tyres becoming the holding company of Monotona, the combined capacity of the two companies will be 1.3 million tyres a month. Falcon itself is implementing Rs.300 crore programme to add 500,000 tyres a month to its capacity, which is expected to be operational by the end of current fiscal (2010-11),” said Pawan K. Ruia, Chairman of the Ruia Group.

“On completion of the projects of both the companies, Falcon and its subsidiary will have a total capacity of 2.3 million tyres a month. This should be useful in carving out a bigger chunk of the replacement segment, while expanding the export destinations,” he added.