The joint venture between Sram & Mram Group and Csepel states that the electric buses will be provided free of cost to the vendors and would adopt the BOOT business model
12 Sep 2019 | 12988 Views | By Autocar Professional Bureau
UK based global conglomerate Sram & Mram Group joins hands with Csepel Holding Nyrt, Hungary to become a bus manufacturing conglomerate. This agreement would enable both the industrial giants to synergise their strengths and help produce smart and cheap buses in the EV segment. The initiative would help developing economies to ...
This is an Autocar Pro Plus article. Subscribe to continue reading.
UK based global conglomerate Sram & Mram Group joins hands with Csepel Holding Nyrt, Hungary to become a bus manufacturing conglomerate. This agreement would enable both the industrial giants to synergise their strengths and help produce smart and cheap buses in the EV segment. The initiative would help developing economies to leverage the BOOT (Build, Own, Operate and Transfer) business model of the conglomerate and march towards the green revolution.
According to the joint venture, all the buses will be provided free of cost to the vendors including governments. Csepel and Sram would be appointing ELPRO Automobiles in India, to manage all the maintenance related work and providing charging stations across India. ELPRO by itself has been an auto ancillary company working towards developing world with green energy technologies and has initiated talks with the Republic of Myanmar, Government of India and the Kingdom of Cambodia to strengthen their public transport systems by introducing 2000 new EV buses free of cost. The joint venture partners will generate all the necessary financial and man power resources to finance the entire project from scratch and is launching 200 fully ready 33 seater buses within a period of 2 years from the date of the proposed agreements with various governments and corporates.
Csepel Holding will bring in the necessary investments required which is human, financial and technical resources to setup multiple assembling units in Asia across different countries such as India, Myanmar, Cambodia and other Asian countries within the next 5 years. Group Chairman Dr Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani along with vice-chairman of the consortium Kalaichelvan, a veteran in the field of automotive ancillaries and owner of multiple IPR’s in the fields of automotive motors have together in association with Harpreet Bhakshi, managing director, ELPRO have pledged comprehensive resources including financial, human and technical for the next 10 years to ensure the success of this project.
Kalaichelvan, director, Csepel Holding, a veteran industrialist, has brought in the entire Hungarian automotive manufacturers under one roof and has been at the forefront of creating green initiatives along with European Corridor. He has also signed multiple agreements with both the Hungarian Government and Hungarian automotive associates to spread the green revolution across the globe and help under developed countries with the technical know-how to convert existing infrastructure to more environment friendly green initiatives.
In a meeting that was earlier held with the secretary of state and minister Othsman Hassan and Rofy Othsman, member of Parliament, it was affirmed that the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has been advocating the need to revamp the Cambodian transport landscape and was keen in involving private bodies to build the necessary technologies to build what was necessary. Othsman Hassan, a seasoned politician with grassroots level grip on Cambodian politics was very keen to pursue the BOOT model as it would enable businesses to grow at a rapid rate with Public and Private Partnerships (PPP) enabling a healthy business environment thus improving the economy as a whole.
Nitin Gupta, Director, Cosmo Solutions, a technocrat businessman from India has been appointed by Csepel to supply the batteries needed for the buses. Speaking at the press briefing after the event Dr Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, chairman, Sram & Mram, Group and ELPRO Group reiterated the need for large corporates to participate in the economic betterment of sleeping Asian giants to ensure that the growth process is triggered in the correct direction keeping futuristic ideologies and technologies in mind.
Sunil Kumar Arora, executive director, ELPRO handling the road transportation sector has also emphasised that the corporate honchos have decided to foray into the EV transport market and is bringing in affordable technologies to developing economies and help build their economies along with the infrastructure sector specifically targeting the surface transport sector and thus fuel the economic independence of these economies.