Tata Motors will shut its Jamshedpur plant for 11 days, starting Wednesday, for repair and maintenance work.
The slowdown in the economy has hit hard the medium and heavy commercial vehicle segment and across industry, volumes have fallen 23 per cent this financial year over the same period last year. If overall sales of commercial sales have fallen only by 1.5 per cent this fiscal, it is thanks to the rescue act by the light commercial vehicle segment that has grown 15 per cent.
Tata Motors too has been affected, and over 2012-13, it has halted production at Jamshedpur for nearly a fortnight , to “align production with demand”.
The March 27-April 6 shutdown, according to a company spokesperson, was because it was not possible to carry out the maintenance, especially in the paint house, when day-to-day operations were on.
The Jamshedpur plant makes heavy and medium commercial vehicles, whose sales have fallen about 31 per cent so far this financial year, over the same period last year. The Jamshedpur plant has a capacity of 1.44 lakh units a year and makes vehicles of 7- to 49- tonne capacity for a range of applications, including for the Defence sector.
While Tata Motors total commercial vehicle sales have gone up up nearly two per cent so far this financial year, M&HCV sales have fallen about 31 per cent to 128,529 units from 185,037 units in the corresponding period last year.
During an interaction with journalists in February, when the Jamshedpur plant rolled out its two millionth vehicle, Ravi Pisharody, Executive Director and Head of Commercial Vehicle Business Unit, said green shoots of economic recovery were still not visible as far as the commercial vehicle industry was concerned.
Sales were down because of the overall state of the economy and weak sentiment. In the commercial vehicle business, customers tend to put off purchases en masse.
Some of the company’s large customers had said they were prepared to buy trucks and tippers on the first positive signs of economic revival. For this to happen, spending on infrastructure projects has to speed up and mining activity needs to revive.