Latest Car News in India

Maruti sticks to safety first agenda, Manesar plant ready to start production

The Manesar plant has become the Achilles’ heel for India’s largest car maker – Maruti and this plant is not letting the car maker to limp back to normal operations. As we already know that the violence hit Manesar plant was closed down leading to no production of Maruti Swift and Swift Dzire sedan that translated into loss of production as well as sales loss for these two cars recently. Meanwhile the plant remained closed until Thursday and the company has decided to install more safety measures before the production could start again at the plant. Significantly, on July 18, a senior management staff was murdered at the plant in a tussle between the management and the workers and following the incident, the workers ransacked a part of the plant. Police had arrested over 100 persons in this connection and the case is under investigation.

Now that plant is closed since July 18 and the car company is incurring huge losses due to it, it seems to be not in a hurry to resume production as it wants to ensure the safety of its workers first than anything else. In a statement released on Thursday, the company said that since the employee safety is at high priority, the company will be taking every step to ensure safety first than it will be considering to resume production. The safety measures will include installation of better safety equipments and the training of the staff to handle any contingency.

Meanwhile, as the production of the Swift and Dzire has stopped, the demand for other cars such as Mahindra Verito, Volkswagen Vento, Hyundai i20, Ford Figo and others have witnessed increase in demand. As per an industry insider, among these cars Hyundai i20 and Mahindra Verito that has taken a new avatar recently have increased considerably. However, those who know the ins and out of Indian auto industry feel that these production hiccups were there in 2011 as well and once these will be over, the Swift and Dzire sales will come back to normal shape.