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Maruti to kick off construction at Mehsana plant next year

Playing on the back foot, Maruti India has reportedly decided to adopt a go slow strategy for its Gujarat plant. Already, the Gujarat plant has created much abuzz in the industry and is seen as a big move by the India car maker. The company is expected to begin construction at the new site in the next fiscal. Notably, irked by the constant strike at Gurgaon and Manesar plants resulting in production cut of Maruti Swift and Maruti Swift Dzire, the company has decided to install a new production plant in Mehsana, Gujarat.  

Lately, Gujarat was zeroed in as a destination for new Maruti plant following the availability of cheap labor as well as promotion of auto industry by the Gujarat government. The Mehsana plant will be the first plant by Maruti that will be placed outside its home state Haryana. The decision on the new plant was taken in October last year and everybody in the Industry began speculating that Maruti will be starting construction of the plant at the earliest. However, on the contrary, Maruti seems to be in no hurry to start the operation at the new plant site.

Probable reasons arrived after much grilling could be the meek sales experienced by Maruti cars. Apart from Maruti Swift Dzire and Maruti SX4 besides Maruti Alto K10, all other Maruti cars have witnessed a sharp decline in sales. Maruti has high hopes with the Gujarat plant and it seems that there will no labor related as well as other hassles at the proposed Rs 18, 000 crore Mehsana plant. Also Maruti plans to step up production of cars to 1.8 million cars by 2016.

Maruti has been in news recently following the hike in prices of its cars from Monday. An increase of 0.3 percent to 3.4 percent across models has been made by Maruti. However, Maruti Swift Dzire price has been kept as it is due to the fact that its new version is coming soon.