New Swift to be produced partly in Gurgaon

Maruti India is considering to shift the production of its star hatchback Maruti Swift to its Gurgaon facility. The standoff started between the management and workers last week has brought the company to think about partial relocation of the production of new Maruti Swift to Gurgaon. A senior official at Maruti Suzuki India intimated that an acute shortage in manpower at the Manesar plant is the reason for this partial shift, if at all it happens.

The two plants at Manesar (A and B) are integrated. The second plant, set up at an investment of Rs 1,700 crore, was deliberately started a month ahead of the schedule. The products made at the weld shop at the second plant are sent for assembly at the first plant. However it is being speculated that Maruti Suzuki India will transport components from weld shop at Manesar to be assembled in Gurgaon.

Maruti India produced 435 Swift cars last week, against a target of 8,400 units. Between Wednesday and Monday, 635 cars were rolled out from the facility. The company rolled out another 225 cars from the Manesar unit on Tuesday. But a total of 90,000 new Maruti Swift bookings have been registered with the Maruti India dealers and they have stopped receiving further bookings. They fear that the standoff and the protest by the workers can prove to be deadly and can delay the delivery to April next year and even beyond for select models.

The company was on its heels in the month of July before the launch of new Maruti Swift in August and produced 17,000-18,000 Swift cars against the monthly average of 12,000 cars. But the impasse started on August 29 again attenuated the production of the car. The company dismissed five permanent workers, suspended 26 permanent workers and terminated the services of another 18 trainees alleging them of sabotaging production and causing quality problems in cars on the first two days of the impasse. In addition to this, all the workers are told to sign a good conduct bond before entering factory premises. So far, 40-odd permanent workers have signed the bond but the majority of them haven’t. However, the company made some positive moves by hiring another 20 technicians, taking the total workforce available at the facility to 870.

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