Tata Motors, India’s largest auto manufacturer, will shut down manufacturing operations at its Pune’s commercial vehicle (CV) unit for three days.
The shutdown was due to disruption of supply of automotive parts from one of its suppliers, an executive from the company said today.
The auto parts vendor was hit after its manufacturing facility was damaged in the Indian Oil Corporation fire in Jaipur on October 29.
A Tata Motors spokesperson confirmed that production of CVs would be halted for 3 days starting November 13.
“One of our vendors that supplies parts to the CV division was affected after the IOC depot caught fire. We are hence keeping our plant shut as supplies of those parts has reduced,” said the spokesperson.
Even though the spokesperson refused to name the vendor, market sources said it was automotive lighting manufacturer Autolite, which suffered severe damages in the fire.
Autolite is a Jaipur-based company with a turnover of Rs 80 crore (as on March 31, 2009, according to the Bombay Stock Exchange data). Autolite supplies products such as head lamps, halogen lamps, rubber body lamps and rubber housings. The company supplies to original equipment manufacturers such as Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Mahindra and Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki to name a few. Earlier, Rajesh Jejurikar, chief of operations at M&M, had said that its sourcing of components was likely to be impacted following the IOC fire and hence its production too would get sequentially impacted. The passenger vehicle manufacturing unit of Tata Motors will, however, stay continue production as usual.
“We are shutting down only the CV unit while the passenger vehicle unit will stay operational,” said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson also claimed that there would be no impact on the market for the company.
The Pune facility of Tata Motors is spread over two locations — Pimpri and Chinchwad, and houses a integrated vehicle manufacturing complex.
The facility has four assembly lines – one each for medium and heavy commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles, utility vehicles and passenger cars.
The company was forced to keep this plant shut for six days in November last year due to diminishing demand for CVs following the nationwide slump in general demand.
The company, which has a market share of almost 65 per cent in the CV space, was forced to observe another shut down at the same facility for three days in the first week of December last year, primarily to avoid build up unsold stock of CVs.
The disruption in production for Tata Motors comes at a time when demand for medium and heavy CVs has started to look up.
The CV facility in Lucknow and Jamshedpur has come as a breather for the company.
