AGCL OF GOA TO BUILD 10,000 BUSES PER YEAR
Automobile Corporation of Goa Ltd. (ACGL), has started building the Tata - Hispano luxury bus at its facility in Goa. The new bus is based on the global design models of Spanish bus body builder Hispano acquired by Tata Motors a couple of years back. The Goa plant has at this moment a capacity to manufacture 25 buses a month, but investment plans to increase the production to 10,000 buses per year are carried out at this moment.
Already 50 Tata-Hispano buses have been built and delivered to customers in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Currently the chassis is being manufactured by Tata Motors and the bus body at the ACGL facility.
ACGL or Automobile Corporation of Goa Limited originally was a joint venture between Tata Motors and Economic Development Corporation of Goa Ltd. Tata chose Goa for making bus bodies because of the tax concessions available there. The first designs were provided by Fuji Heavy Industries, Japan, the technical collaborator and Japan's larget bus body manufacturer at that time. In 2007-08 ACGL manufactured and sold nearly 3,600 buses, out of which 3,500 buses were exported. During the current year the company plans to manufacture about 6,000 buses out of which 4,000 are expected to be for exports and the balance will be for the domestic market.
