Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

Maruti Suzuki has decided to bring forward the launch of its second Manesar plant and start commercial production in a day or two, instead of by the month-end as planned earlier. The move to commission the new facility a month ahead of schedule comes in a bid to deal with the production impasse the company finds itself in. Workers at the first Manesar plant have been locked in a fresh stand-off with the management since Monday. The company has already lost production for four days (it produces 1,200 cars a day), even as it was able to roll out nearly 160 cars on Wednesday and Thursday. The second plant at Manesar, set up at an investment of Rs 1,700 crores, has capacity to manufacture 250, 000 cars.

However, the move has not impelled the 2,000-odd workers to relent and come back to work by signing a good conduct bond. Instead, they are ready for a collision course. Around 3,000 workers belonging to unions of other companies in the region assembled in front of the Manesar plant to express solidarity with the protesting workers. The company on Thursday hired 180 skilled technicians on contract, taking the total number of workers hired over the past two days to300. In addition to this, 50 engineers from the Gurgaon plant and 290supervisors are working at the Manesar plant. The company had put in place contingency measures and started pre-assembly work by operating the weld shop, press shop and paint shop at the facility with the help of some line manager sand shop-floor supervisors earlier.