Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), the country's largest passenger car maker, is believed to be making headway start on the ground work for its upcoming production unit in Gujarat. The construction work of company's new manufacturing division is expected to begin in the first half of 2013 calendar year. The revelation came through a senior official, S. Y. Siddiqui, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Human Resources, Finance, IT, MSIL in Hyderabad on November 30, 2012.
According to Siddiqui, MSIL has finalised land acquisition deal for the project and initial ground work could begin soon, somewhere in the early months of 2013. The declaration came at the sidelines of National HRD Network 16th national conference held in Hyderabad. The COO also affirmed that MSIL is also working towards setting up a new stock yard in Ahmedabad pretty soon.
Reportedly, the country's favourite passenger car maker has signed a State Support Agreement (SSA) with the government of Gujarat in June 2012. The agreement comprised land purchasing deal near Mehsana for the establishment of upcoming manufacturing unit. Further, the state government has assigned 700 acres of land to Maruti Suzuki for its project, which could shoot up its annual vehicle yield up to 2 million units by 2015-16. The proposed Mehsana vehicle assembly unit is situated some 100 km away from Ahmedabad and 300 km apart from Mundra port.
Commenting on proposed plan of an Ahmedabad based stockyard for auto components, spare parts and vehicles, Siddiqui said, “One simple project which we are looking at is setting up stock yard in Gujarat because we have our land there. And it will be quite natural to create a stockyard just like Manesar and Gurgaon. The western area can be fed by Gujarat. This will be done on a priority basis.” Siddiqui also said that the timeframe for forthcoming stockyard might see final decision by next March 2013.
Reportedly, before the start of construction work on new project, MSIL will consider relevant fact and details regarding its current annual production output from Gurgaon and Manesar divisions along with prevalent market trends. Expressing his opinion on the issue, Siddiqui, said, “At the moment we will have to take a close look at whether the industry grows at 14 per cent CAGR. And we have 1.8 million capacity at Gurgaon and Manesar. Whether this 1.8 million can be fully utilised by 2015-16.”
At present, MSIL has three stockyards and two manufacturing facilities on the domestic turf. The stockyards are situated at Gurgaon, Manesar (both in Haryana) and Bangalore (Karnataka), besides two more are presently under construction at Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Ranchi (Jharkhand). Further, MSIL's Gurgaon and Manesar divisions have a combined annual turn out of close to 1.8 million units and the new Mehsana unit is anticipated to produce some quarter of a million units per annum as well. Hence, in near future MSIL will have a combined production output of over 2 million units per year.
