Madhya Pradesh Looks Like The Automobile And Ancillary Hub India Always Wanted

It’s not a surprise that the dynamics of infrastructure, automobile & auto component ecosystem and investor friendly policy is allowing Madhya Pradesh to emerge as the automobile & ancillary hub of central India. The conducive industrial ecosystem has brought a great acceleration of the trends across the mobility value chain that the state has never seen before. 

In the last few years, things hit top speed. A string of measures, strategic announcements and investments have left even the industry experts wondering why such a bubble is growing in the state. To understand this, we need to understand the automobile and auto component ecosystem of Madhya Pradesh. 

There are more than 10 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), 2770 engineering manufacturers, and 200 auto component manufacturers present in the state. They employ a workforce of 200,000 technical professionals. Some of the specific skill development institutes in this sector are: the Indo-German Tool Room—an initiative between Government of India and Federal Republic of Germany, the Pithampur Auto Cluster Ltd (PACL)—an initiative of Government of Madhya Pradesh, the MSME Technology Centre in Bhopal—an initiative between Government of Madhya Pradesh and Government of India with support from World Bank, and the Central Farm Machinery Training & Testing Institute, Budni—an initiative of the Government of India. 

Pithampur auto cluster is an emerging auto hub of central India. It is home to top-notch industrial infrastructure, spans across total area of around 4,500 hectares and provides excellent industrial infrastructural facilities. The Pithampur auto cluster has over 120 large and 450 MSME units. 

The state has leading auto clusters of India at Pithampur near Indore, and Mandideep near Bhopal, having exports of $26.24 million from Madhya Pradesh in FY 2021-22. 

Infrastructure 

The state has easy connectivity with large markets and major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Madhya Pradesh possesses the road network of 160,000 kms. The state boasts of a well-developed infrastructure enjoying 25,800 MW of surplus power, 95+ industrial areas with more than 2,00,000 acres of total land bank, 1000 MCM water reserved for industry, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and has developed industrial and investment regions like Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow, Ratlam-Nagda, Shajapur-Dewas and Neemach-Nayagaon along the corridor. Notably, the state enjoys six inland container depots (ICD) having connectivity with all the major ports of India to encourage exports. 

The state also has premier testing facilities like Central Farm Machinery Training & Testing Institute at Budhni and NATRAX at Pithampur. 

Connectivity 

Besides this, Madhya Pradesh enjoys good air, rail, and road connections that ensure a seamless supply-chain management and a high export-import potential. Out of five commercial airports and 26 airstrips, two of them have domestic air cargo facilities and one has international air cargo facilities. Moreover, the state enjoys flight connectivity of 100 flights. Every day, more than 500 trains pass through the state, operating in more than 20 significant rail intersections spread across the state. 

Convergence 

A flagship project of Ministry of Heavy Industries, Government of India is the state-of-the-art automotive testing and certificate centre under NATRIP. NATRAX is spread across an area of 1200 hectares with 11.3 kms of test track with an investment of Rs 1653 Crores ($200 million) where, it has 14 types of test track including vehicle dynamics, fatigue and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) testing facilities. 

High-end vehicles such as BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla, undergo high speed testing (HST) which cannot be measured on any other Indian test tracks. It is easily accessible to all the major manufactures as it is centrally located in Madhya Pradesh. The track can be used for developments of prototype cars according to Indian conditions. Vehicle can achieve max speed of 375 kmph on curves with steering control and it has less banking on ovals making it also one of the safest test tracks globally. 

The state has leading auto clusters of India at Pithampur near Indore—state's commercial capital, and Mandideep near Bhopal having exports of $26.24 million in FY 2021-22. As per World Bank and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Government of India, Madhya Pradesh has achieved “Achievers” category in the ease of doing business (EODB) metric. 

The future pact strategy has given a change in direction that might otherwise have taken many years. And the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ too gets a facelift with Madhya Pradesh emerging as an automobile & auto ancillary hub in central India.