KTR welcomes Daifuku's Rs 450-cr investment in Telangana

HYDERABAD: Telangana Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday welcomed Daifuku Company Limited's Rs 450 crore investment in Telangana and urged the state's industrialists to think big and produce world-class products.

Daifuku Company Limited, the world's leading provider of automated material handling technology and solutions, announced its plans to construct a new manufacturing facility in the state of Telangana.

The Telangana government entered into an agreement with Daifuku Company as an MoU was signed on Tuesday in the presence of IT Minister KTR and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan.

While addressing the gathering on the occasion, the minister said that land was a luxurious commodity and wanted industrialists to be more innovative and make new inventions. "Capital access was a big challenge in the past. Indian entrepreneurs need to be bolder and more aggressive," he said.

The Minister emphasised the importance of focusing more on the manufacturing sector, stating that India should achieve all-round growth and development in the sector in 10 years, as opposed to the United States, which achieved it in 30 years and China in 25 years.

Using Dandu Malkapur as an example, the Minister KTR urged industrialists to compete in scaling up their operations and establishing large parks in the state.

"We need to pole-vault and outrun the competition. Aside from hi-tech and smart manufacturing, basic manufacturing should be prioritised", said KTR.

The new state-of-the-art factory, with a footprint of more than 200,000 square feet, would be built to supplement its current 60,000 square foot facility and would produce world-class intra-logistics equipment such as automated storage and retrieval systems, sorting transfer vehicles, conveyors, and sorters.

The first phase of expansion envisages a planned investment of Rs 200 crores and Daifuku expects to operationalize its new factory within the next 18 months.

"This expansion, which would include technology transfer from Japan will not only help us in expecting our localization plans but will also accelerate our product development pipeline in India so that we can serve the needs of our Indian customers with greater efficiency" says Srinivas Garimella, Managing Director of Daifuku's Indian Subsidiary, Vega Conveyors and Automation Private Limited.

Recalling his recent meeting with Procter and Gamble, the Minister stated that he wanted the company to collaborate with IIT Basar to introduce apprenticeship programmes. He added that it would be a win-win situation for both the company and the institution.

With the Indian economy anticipated to remain as one amongst the fastest growing economies in the world, Daifuku expects that the intra-logistics automation market would continue to grow rapidly and plans to employ 250 people and products that on full plant capacity utilization, the number of which may move up to more than 800 as it continues to stay vested in India.

Hiroshi Nobuta, Daifuku Board Member and Responsible officer for its Indian operations, while thanking the government of Telangana for being proactive in fast-tracking its expansion plans, stated that India would continue to be a focus market for Daifuku and remained committed to the company's Indian operations.