Chennai: With the favourable winds blowing in favour of the windmill industry, the Chennai-based helical gear motor manufacturer Bonfiglioli Transmissions Pvt Ltd, the wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the Italian Bonfiglioli group, will soon start manufacturing gear motors for windmills.

The company has drawn up an Rs20-crore investment plan for this venture. Says CEO M Ganesh, "We have planned to manufacture 7,000 units next year and in 2008 the production would go up to 18,000 units." According to him, each windmill will need around three gear motors.

In addition, the Indian subsidiary has also expanded its helical gear motor production capacity at an outlay of Rs25 crore. "The additional investments are for plant and machinery and land," says Ganesh.

Starting its operations in 1999, Bonfiglioli Transmissions is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Italian Bonfiglioli group. Till date the group has invested around Rs100 crore in the Indian venture. Interestingly, the Indian venture is the first full-fledged manufacturing plant outside Italy for the group though it has set up 13 assembly plants away from Italy.

Apart from manufacturing helical gear motors, Bonfiglioli Transmissions markets other gear motors of its parent group in India. According to Ganesh, the trading activity contributes around 40 per cent of the company's turnover.

Last calendar year the Italian company had a turnover of €33 million, which is projected to go up to €45 million.

Nearly 50 per cent of the company's turnover is from exports to South East Asia, the Middle East, Australia and South Africa.