Maruti starts ops at 2nd unit in Manesar

Country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) today said it had started operations at its second plant at its Manesar facility.

The development comes at a time when MSI is trying to restore normal production at its first plant at the facility amid an impasse between the management and workers.

Meanwhile, worker representatives from factories in Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera industrial belt today submitted a memorandum to the Deputy Labour Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon District to take action to end the impasse.

"Maruti Suzuki's second plant [Plant B] at Manesar commenced part-production of vehicles today. In an effort to raise production volumes, the weld operations in Plant B were started," the company said in a statement.

In the current situation, when the company is working with less manpower, start of weld operations at Manesar Plant B will help in ramping up production and overall volumes, it added.

The two plants at Manesar (A and B) are integrated. The output from Weld Shop of Plant B can be fed to the Assembly line of Plant A, it said.

The production at the Manesar plant has been affected since Monday after the company decided to force workers to sign a 'good conduct bond' before entering the factory premises, following alleged "sabotage" and deliberate quality compromise with cars produced last week.

On the first two days of the stand-off, MSI dismissed 5 permanent workers. Besides, it also suspended 26 permanent workers and discontinued the services of another 18 trainees on charges of sabotage and causing quality problems in cars.

The company today rolled out 125 cars from the first plant. MSI on an average produces about 1,200 units of Swift, A-Star and SX4 every day from the plant. On this basis, the production loss suffered by MSI so far since Monday is estimated at about 4,575 units, valued at over Rs 225 crore.

With no signs of an end to the impasse between workers of the first plant at Manesar and management, representatives of unions from factories in the industrial belt in a memorandum urged the Deputy Labour Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon District to take action to end the standoff.

"Also, all the national trade unions had a meeting. The joint meeting has condemned the action by the MSI management and asked the company to immediately allow workers to join on duty," All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) Secretary DL Sachdev said.

Representatives from AITUC, CITU, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, INTUC and Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh took part in the meeting, he said.