Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), which witnessed labour unrest at its Manesar facility, is set to complete the process of regularisation of contract workers at the unit by November-end. Contract workers at Maruti's Gurgaon unit will be regularised by March next year.
After the violent clashes between the workers and management at the Manesar plant in July, Maruti had decided to hire only permanent or regular employees for core production activities.
S Y Siddiqui, chief operating officer (administration & human resources), MSIL said: "We are holding interviews and verifying the applications of 1,870 contract workers who worked at Manesar prior to the incident on July 18. Of these, a batch of 200 workers will join work by the end of this month and another 300 would begin work from the end of November." After the completion of the regularisation process, the workforce at Manesar will increase to 4,500 from the current 3,822.
Alto 800 export
MSIL said it could start exporting the new Alto 800 from Gujarat's Mundra port from December this year. The first export market is likely to be Chile in South America.
Launching the car in Ahmedabad, Tarun Garg, vice president (sales), MSIL said, "We will start exporting the car from December this year."
He did not comment on the initial export volumes.
The new Alto 800 has been priced in the range of Rs 2.48 lakh to Rs 3.62 lakh ex-showroom at Ahmedabad, less than the existing Alto 800 cc model, which is priced around Rs 2.56 lakh in the city. The existing 800 cc model will be phased out, while the Alto K10 variant will continue to sell.
The company now makes and sells 15,000 Alto 800 cc models a month and around 8,000-9,000 Alto K10 models a month, said Garg. While the Alto 800 would ideally replace the existing Alto 800 cc, volumes are expected to go up significantly. Garg, however, did not comment on the sales volumes, adding that the production lines were flexible to be tweaked according to market demand.
"The market has started to look up. This Onam, we have experienced 17 per cent growth compared to last year, and we are hoping sentiments to improve during the festive season", he said.
The Alto 800 has received 10,000 pre-launch bookings and despatches are likely to be completed within the Navaratri period, he added.
Maruti has sold around 473,000 vehicles during the first half of the year, flat growth over the same period last fiscal. It expects to clock a 10 per cent growth during the second half, thereby ending the year with a roughly 5 per cent growth, Garg said.
