JK Tyre & Industries, a leading automobile tyre manufacturer, sketched an investment plan worth Rs 270 crore for expanding its production capacity of off-the-road (OTR) tyres by 2011.

The company currently has 42 per cent share in the 95,000-units domestic OTR market in the country, which are used for application like mining and excavation.

Sources revealed that the company is adding fresh capacity of 9,000 units per annum at its Mysore plant to take the total to about 44,000 tyres a year in the next two years. The increase in capacity will be initially done with a view to strengthen its presence in the local market, which later also be used to explore opportunities for the company in the overseas market.

The company intends to expand its presence in this segment in view of the high margin, because each ultra large OTR tyres cost approximately between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.

The company intends to invest Rs 120 crore in the first phase till March 2010 to produce 4,000 tyres, primarily for earth moving equipment maker BEML.

While Post-March 2010, it will look to augment the capacity to 9,000 units at an additional investment of Rs 150 crore. With the new capacity addition, the company will be mainly export the products to North and Latin America.

Recently, the company has restarted its Rs 50 crore expansion project for its passenger car radial tyres at Gwalior to expand capacity to 50 lakh tyres from the current 44 lakh.