Swedish commercial vehicle-maker Scania will invest Rs 150 crore to set up an assembly plant in Narasapura in Bangalore over the next year. This will be Scania’s third plant in Asia. It already has a plant in Dubai serving the West Asian market and another in Thailand to serve Southeast Asia.

For Scania, which is eyeing road transport segment in India, the unit will help decrease its delivery time. The company expects to roll out about 2,000 heavy haulage trucks and 1,000 inter-city buses and coaches from this plant over the next five years. Scania is also preparing to sell engines to its original equipments manufacturers (OEM). These engines are more compact, resulting in lesser fuel consumption, leading to lower emissions.

“We have currently about 600 trucks running in the country. L&T is our dealer partner and most of our products are now used in the mining sector,” said Henrik Fagrenius, MD, Scania. Though he did not reveal any figure on the per cent of local sourcing and import, Fagrenius said local sourcing will be given preference.

He added, “By the start of 2013, our trucks will be rolling out from Bangalore plant. Our second vertical, which we will focusing on is road transport in India.”

Scaniaplans to employ about 800 people in the facility over the next five years.