The Hindu Business Line : Auto cos near Pune set to halt work in December

Pune, Dec. 17 With block closures the unfortunate flavour of the season, Pune could well become “ground zero-production” during and around Christmas week.

Assembly lines of several companies, prominently auto majors and ancillary units, have stopped or will stop work for varying periods.

General Motors’ Talegaon facility, the newest in town that commenced manufacturing this September, has a complete production shutdown for 13 days beginning December 16.

Denying that this has anything to do with the slowdown, Mr P. Balendran, Director and VP (Corporate Affairs), GM India, said: “This is a routine maintenance closure that is across all GM plants in the world, and declared in January itself. We have a lot of foreigners working at both our Halol and Talegaon plants who go back home during this time, so the plants are shut down.”

A little distance away, Mercedes Benz is midway between dismantling and shifting its assembly lines from its existing facility at Chikhli to its geenfield plant at Chakan. Production stopped a month ago and will resume only around the middle of Q1 of 2009, a spokesperson for the company said.

The closures announced by Bajaj Auto have prompted several vendors who have set up shop in the vicinity to align their closures with those of the two-wheeler major.

According to an estimate, about 20,000 people will be on a paid vacation at various times during December. But no one is rejoicing as one employee of a Minda company summed up the prevailing sentiment, “We will get paid leave, but with the future so uncertain, who can enjoy it?”

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