International Battery Company (IBC) and the Karnataka government have inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for setting up a Rs 8,000 crore recyclable lithium-ion battery manufacturing unit in the state, the media has reported. This move is said to give a big push to the state's electric vehicles (EV) industry. US-based IBC is a privately owned company and it is making some initial batches of its prismatic or rectangular cells in South Korea. IBC would acquire 100 acres of land close to the technology hub of Bengaluru to build its facility, news agency Bloomberg reported.
Principal Secretary for the Department of Commerce and Industries Dr Selvakumar and IBC India's President Venkatesh Valluri signed and exchanged the MoU in the presence of Large and Medium Industries Minister MB Patil. Speaking on the occasion, Patil said the company will establish the unit on a 100-acre parcel of land in the Bengaluru Rural district, a report by PTI said.
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"After the realisation of the project the state would have its second Lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility paving the way for becoming the front runner as a Li-ion battery manufacturing state in the country," Patil was quoted as saying.
There were talks since June and that is when the US-based firm had expressed interest in setting up a facility in the Southern Indian state where equipment, parts and other products related to electrification and decarbonisation technologies will be manufactured.
The IBC team explained the importance of recyclable batteries and emphasised the need for setting up "dry rooms and clean rooms" for high-quality production of batteries, the PTI report added.