Basic HTML Version
MOTORINDIA
l
June 2012
35
Expressing his views, Mr. Raj
Gopal, Vice Chairman & Managing
Director, Gujarat State Road Trans-
port Corporation, said: “We are ex-
tremely happy with the advanced
Allison technology and are planning
to introduce more buses with this
technology. Since the Corporation
has already become a role model in
city-bus transportation, the Gujarat
Government is keen to offer better
passenger comfort and safety for the
ever-growing number of commut-
ers”.
Mr. G. Ganesan, Deputy Man-
ager, Metropolitan Transport Cor-
poration (Chennai) Ltd., while pre-
senting his observation, disclosed
that the Tamil Nadu Government is
seriously considering further fitment
of Allison automatics in the State
Transport vehicles, for which vigor-
ous trials are in progress.
Mr. Deshabandu Gamuna Wi-
jerathne, President, Lanka Private
Bus Owners’ Association, who was
present with his team, pointed out
that his Association which includes
16,000 members, with a fleet of
20,000 buses, is playing a big role
in road transportation in Sri Lanka
and would most likely opt for Alli-
son technology because of its prov-
en quality and widespread sales and
service network.
India emerging big market
A virtual market leader in the ful-
ly automatic transmission segment
currently in India, Allison considers
India as a highly potential and prom-
ising market for the coming years. In
line with the company’s long-term
plans for India, Allison decided to
go with Chennai as its manufactur-
ing facility site because of the city’s
emergence as the Detroit of Asia
over the years. In fact, the Allison
plant is located just behind the facil-
ity of Komatsu, the leading Japanese
off-highway vehicle manufacturer
and close to the factories of global
giants Daimler and Renault, which
stand testimony to Chennai’s ag-
gressive development in the auto-
motive sector.
Apart from catering to the lo-
cal demand, the Chennai plant also
meets the needs of markets like Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh. The pro-
posed expansion of the Chennai fa-
cility will make it Allison’s second
largest plant in the world, next only
to that in USA. The company has a
third plant in Hungary.
w
component zone
An inside view of Allison’s Oragadam plant