New plant for Tata Nano at Sanand inaugurated

SANAND (AHMEDABAD): Tata Motors' brand new plant for the Tata Nano at Sanand, in Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, was inaugurated today by Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi, in the presence of the Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Motors, Ratan N. Tata, Ministers of the Gujarat Government, top officials, vendor and supplier partners, dealers and associates of the company. The plant's inauguration marks the culmination of the company's goal of making the Tata Nano freely available to hundreds of thousands of families, desirous of the car. The capacity of the plant, to begin with, will be 250,000 cars per year to be achieved in phases, and with some balancing is expandable up to 350,000 cars per year. Further capacity expansion has also been provided for in this location. Deliveries from the plant, including BS4 Tata Nanos, will begin this month. The output, supplemented by the facility at Pantnagar (Uttarakhand), will in the immediate phase complete pending orders from the booking process of 2009. Built in a record time of 14 months starting November 2008, the integrated facility comprises Tata Motors' own plant, spread over 725 acres, and an adjacent vendor park, spread over 375 acres, to house key component manufacturers for the Tata Nano. In line with latest world-class manufacturing practices, the Tata Nano plant has been equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. They include sophisticated robotics and high speed production lines. Conscious of the critical need of environment protection, the plant has energy-efficient motors, variable frequency drives, and systems to measure and monitor carbon levels. These are supplemented with extensive tree plantation, sustainable water sourcing through water harvesting and ground water recharging and harnessing solar energy for illumination. To celebrate the inauguration of the plant, a fleet of Tata Nanos driven by prospective customers, who participated in an online contest on www.tatanano.com, began a country-wide drive, called the Nano Superdrive, from Sanand today. The drive was flagged off by Mr. Tata. The drive will cover 15,000 km touching 36 cities across the country, before converging at Sanand on June 28. Glimpses of the drive, with images and blogs, will be available on www.tatanano.com.