Latest Car News in India

Maruti to focus on Mehsana plant, popular cars, export oriented cars to be produced there

Irked by the constant lockout and outages at its Manesar plant, the largest car maker in India eyes to double the capacity of the proposed car plant at Gujarat. Notably, the Gujarat plant will be operational in the next three years and it is expected that some of the best selling cars including Maruti Swift and Maruti Swift Dzire will be produced at the new plant. This is in the light of the recent lockout that has forced Maruti to take strict decisions including termination of over 300 workers. Due to the outage, Swift and Swift Dzire production has received a severe jolt and it is believed that there will be a crisis of delivery during the upcoming festive season as well.

Originally Maruti has set a target to produce over 2.5 lakh cars at the new upcoming car plant at Mehsana in Gujarat but sources say that it has revised the plans following the Manesar crisis and now the total installed capacity of the new car plant will be over 5 lakh cars per annum. Built with an investment of over Rs 4,000 crore, the new Maruti plant will be the first plant outside Haryana that has become the hometown of the car maker in India. It is expected that the car maker will be producing the upcoming new Maruti 800, Maruti XA Apha SUV, Maruti Ertiga and Maruti Alto besides Swift and Swift Dzire here at the new plant once it is operational. It is also learnt that Maruti will be starting production as soon as one unit is ready at the new site.

It is expected that due to the proximity with the coastline, Maruti will also be producing some of the export models such as Maruti A Star at the new plant and in all probability, it could think of gradually closing down the Manesar plant that has become a worrywart for the car maker. Meanwhile, the production at the riot hit plant limped back to normalcy to some degree recently. Still, the full capacity is not reached and it will take time to put the production back to normal.