Volvo India Pvt Ltd managing director Ravi Uppal, talking to The Indian Express after announcing the launch of FL7 4x2 model truck here on Tuesday, said Volvo has already got Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance for investing $300 million in its operations in the country. The new investment of Rs 50-70 crore will be part of this clearance and the company will be setting up a separate manufacturing facility for this. Volvo has already invested around $70 million (Rs 300 crore) for setting up the base of its operations in the country at Hoskote in Bangalore to manufacture trucks and other utility vehicles. The new plant for inter-city buses and coaches will come up near the existing facility.

Uppal said the company has already begun a series of negotiations with state government transport corporations and private transport operators for flogging the inter-citybuses and coaches. "Volumes of manufacture will ultimately depend upon the kind of orders we conclude but our product has generated a lot of interest among all of them," Uppal said.

He expects to get a breakthrough with the private operators in Bangalore for the new breed of inter-city buses and coaches which are designed to the highest Volvo-set international standards and come with all modern conveniences.

He said the new inter-city vehicles will hit the roads by the year-end. As more buses ply between Bangalore and Chennai and between Bangalore and Hyderabad, he is confident of the demand for these type of vehicles shooting up in the next two years or so.

Uppal said Volvo has already achieved a 40 per cent indigenisation level for the manufacture of its truck models. Since the beginning of August last year it has sold 100 trucks. The company is quite pleased with the performance of vendors who supply it with many components. Pride of place in the country for supplying majority of components goes tosome 30 vendors from Tamil Nadu. The company also sources its components/parts requirements from vendors in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab.

The Volvo chief executive said the company had no plans to be a joint venture partner with any of the vendors right now. The vendors are required to meet the exacting quality standards set by Volvo and so far there is no problem on this score.

Earlier briefing the press on the launch of the new FL7 model trucks, he said Volvo has decided to make India as the base for sourcing its components from Indian vendors for global suppliers. The company has already exported $1 million worth of components from India for its global suppliers. The company will also be focussing more and more on the replacement market for supplying trucks as its vehicles are expected to bring in tangible benefits in cost savings to operators.