Apollo Tyres inks MOU with TN govt

India’s leading tyre manufacturer, Apollo Tyres, has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu government to scale up its investment in a new plant at Oragadam near Chennai by Rs. 1,650 crore. The company revised its investment plans to enable it to roll out 6,000 radial tyres for trucks and buses and 8,000 radial tyres for cars. The 135-acre facility that has been established at the Oragadam Industrial Park is being promoted by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) near Kanchipuram on the Chennai-Bangalore route. The supplementary MoU, incorporating the revised incentives offered by the state government to the company, was signed by Rajeev Ranjan, principal secretary (industries department), and K. Prabhakar, chief (projects) of Apollo Tyres, in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. It may be recalled that Apollo Tyres had originally signed an MOU with the state govt during August’06 to invest Rs. 450 crore. Apollo Tyres, which had developed the technology for bus and truck radial tyres indigenously, has applied this technology at the facility. The project would provide direct employment to 1,100 persons besides creating opportunities for indirect employment to 900 persons.