Motown crisis: Deafening silence at Pimpri-Chinchwad's auto parts units

The first of a 3-part series captures how declining sales and job losses have hit companies in Pimpri-Chinchwad, an automobile hub bordering Pune

There’s an eerie silence on the dimly-lit shop floors of most small-and medium-scale auto component makers in Maharashtra’s Pimpri-Chinchwad belt — a major auto cluster in western India that houses close to 12,000 manufacturing units. Trucks loaded with parts stand motionless at the factory gates. They cannot be dispatched as Tata Motors’ factory is on a temporary shutdown. Most SMEs in the region count the company among key customers.
 
Tata Motors’ plant at Pimpri manufactures passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles (LCVs). But it’s not the truck market leader alone that has affected them adversely. Deep production cuts and