Taking advantage of an extended annual plant maintenance shut down, General Motors India is cutting down production by up to 10 per cent at its plants at Halol in Gujarat and at Talegaon in Maharashtra as the automobile sector reels under a demand slump.
"We usually have annual plant maintenance shut down for 7-10 days. This time we have extended it up to 15 days and it will result in a reduction in production by up to 10 per cent," General Motors India vice-president P Balendran said.
The two plants have been shut down from December 16 till the end of this year, he added.
Balendran said the company, which had set a target of producing 85,000 units from the Halol plant, has now scaled down it to 70,000 units. The plant on a two-shift basis manufactures about 200 cars a day.
The Talegaon plant, which went on-stream earlier this year, works on a single-shift basis and produces 200 cars a day. It has a capacity to produce 1.4 lakh units annually.
"The extended maintenance shut down will result in loss of only nine working days as we work on a five-day week basis," he said, adding that the workers would work on holidays, including weekends to compensate for maintenance shut down.
While most carmakers reported decline in sales growth, GM India's passenger car sales, however, marginally grew in November to 3,673 units against 3,653 units in the corresponding month last year. In fact, last month the company had increased the production in this segment by 19.61 per cent to 4,842 units, compared with 4,048 units in the same month last year.
