Maruti Suzuki's Gujarat plant resumes work after Manesar, Gurugram facilities

Production at India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki's Gujarat plant has resumed two months after it was suspended due to the lockdown amid coronavirus crisis. This comes days after Maruti resumed work at its Manesar and Gurugram plants.

The company issued a statement today saying that 'Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has been informed by Suzuki Motor Gujarat Pvt Limited (SMG) that they would re-start production of vehicles from the 25th of May 2020.'

Suzuki Motor Gujarat manufactures cars on a contract basis for Maruti Suzuki. The facility produces two of Maruti's popular models, Baleno and Swift. The Hansalpur plant has a production capacity of 5 lakh units per annum. Production at the plant was suspended on March 23 to check the spread of coronavirus.

In the statement issued by Maruti Suzuki, the company said it is abiding by all the government regulations and guidelines for safety measures during production work at the plant.

Earlier, on May 18, Maruti Suzuki had announced that it resumed work at its Gurugram plant for the first time since lockdown was imposed across the country. TheGurugram facility rolls out models like S-Cross, Vitara Brezza, Ignis and Super Carry light commercial vehicle.

On April 22, the Haryana government had granted permission to Maruti Suzuki to restart its Manesar facility, but the company had said it will resume operations only when it can maintain continuous production and sell vehicles.

The Gurugram district administration had allowed Maruti Suzuki to run the facility on a single shift basis, while fixing the total number of employees at plant at 4,696.

The Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki, which resumed production a week before the Gurugram plant, has now reported one of its employees has tested positive. The Manesar plant produces high selling models like Alto, Swift, Dzire, S-Presso, Ertiga and Baleno.

Maruti Suzuki had chalked out an action plan for resuming operations post Covid-19 with detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) on maintaining social distancing, hygiene and employee safety.

So far, only about a third of Maruti's dealers have opened for business so far since lockdown restrictions were eased. "We have about one-third of our dealers which have opened so far, 60 per cent of them are in rural areas and gradually we expect the remaining 2,000 dealers to open but it will take a little time," said RC Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki.

Various other carmakers in India like Hyundai, Toyota, Renault and Nissan have also announced partial resumption of operations in the last few days.