The Rs 3,000-crore Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Company (formerly Telcon) plans to use its West Bengal facility for export of low-cost products. The facility is currently running at one-third of its installed capacity, owing to economic slow down.    

The Bangalore-based joint venture between Hitachi Construction Machinery (60 per cent) and Tata Motors (40 per cent), currently supplies construction equipment to developing markets in West Asia and Africa.    

Mitsuhiro Tabei, vice-president and Executive Officer at Hitachi Construction, told the media that the Kharagpur plant will be the export hub for the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka and other developing regions like Africa and West Asia.    

The company has a capacity to manufacture 15,000 equipment units a year from its three plants at Dharwad in Karnataka, Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, and Kharagpur in West Bengal.    

Approximately two per cent (300 units) of production is exported. According to Rana Sinha, Managing Director of Tata Hitachi, exports are expected to increase by 15 per cent over the next three to four years.