Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), the largest car maker in India, announced on 15th April 2012 that the company has planned to invest around Rs. 2,000 crore in its diesel engine production plant at the Gurgaon unit. This investment is made in lieu of becoming parallel to the emerging demand of Maruti Swift, a hatchback and the Swift DZire, a sedan. After launching Ertiga, a compact Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV), in Madhya Pradesh, Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager (Marketing), said that at Gurgaon unit, the company will produce 1.5 lac diesel engines, which will be incorporated within Swift and DZire in this year to cope up with the brilliant demand.
When asked about impact of increase in excise duty of 2 per cent over the car sales, Srivastava said that all the sectors will be equally affected. In the last fiscal year, the total car production was recorded around 26.2 lac units, which was slightly less as compared to 25.2 lac units of fiscal 2010. During the last three months of previous fiscal, half of the cars sold were incorporated with a diesel engine, which was fairly higher than expected.
The company recently disclosed that it will soon establish a new manufacturing unit in Gujarat, which will share the burden of Gurgaon’s plant. The unit at Gurgaon lacks infrastructural facilities and thus, the plant will be utilised to produce diesel engines and will assemble cars at a slow pace.
Srivastava further said that the company will start delivering its newly launched Ertiga by the end of April to regions like South East Asia, largely in Indonesia. In recent times, MPV segment has reported a remarkable growth of around 20 per cent. In the current scenario, the MPV segment accounts for the share of around 10 per cent in the Indian auto industry.
