Driving Into The Future

P Kaniappan, Managing Director, WABCO India speaks to The Machinist about industry trends and the company’s plans for the market.

- Swati Deshpande

How do you look at the Indian market? From WABCO’s perspective, what is the significance of Indian market? 

We are very positive about the Indian market from a longterm perspective as it has emerged as the global hub for auto component sourcing today. Various government initiatives and policies such as Automotive Mission Plan 2016-26, renewed and focused approach to R&D have helped the auto-component industry achieve considerable growth over the years. Government’s drive towards improving road infrastructure across the country, implementation of BSIV norms, Smart City initiative, Make in India initiative and many other such measures makes India an interesting place to be in now.

The Commercial Vehicle market has seen a rebound and started to grow rapidly in the last couple of months. Higher localization by OEMs and growing infrastructure along with adoption of new age technologies has opened up a wider market for companies like WAB- CO India. We continue to expand our capacity keeping in mind the tremendous scope India offers today. Today, WABCO India has emerged as the second pillar for WABCO with its five world class manufacturing facilities spread across India and global software development centre in Chennai.

As the Indian automotive industry is changing, how do you plan to align yourself with the new norms and regulations?