The Hindu Business Line : Maruti mulls second manufacturing facility in Haryana

"The management of Maruti Udyog Ltd is exploring the possibility of setting up a greenfield car manufacturing facility," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

According to the company, the matter has been taken up with the Government of Haryana to ascertain the availability of land and related infrastructure. Once details of the State Government's response are available, a detailed proposal will be placed before the company's board of directors for consideration, the statement added.

Mr Om Prakash Chautala, the Chief Minister of Haryana, was quoted in agency reports on Wednesday as having said that Maruti's second project would be similar to Maruti's existing project in Gurgaon.

The Chief Minister was reported to have said that the 600-acre project would involve an investment of Rs 1,800 crore and that the Haryana Government had already given its sanction in this regard.

Maruti's current manufacturing facility in Gurgaon comprises three integrated plants with flexible assembly lines. It has an installed capacity of 3,50,000 vehicles per year, and produces more than 50 variants of the nine basic models manufactured. At present, the factory is running at about 110 per cent of capacity utilisation. However, the capacity at the plant can be stretched up to 5,00,000 units a year with modifications and productivity improvement initiatives.

Maruti is currently working on a three-year plan to raise its productivity, cost and quality to world-class levels. Called Challenge 50, the plan aims to raise productivity by 50 per cent and bring down the cost per vehicle by 30 per cent by 2004-05.

Parent company, Suzuki Motor Corporation had recently said that it would invest about $94 million over the next few years in its Indian subsidiary towards increasing automation at its facilities as well as rolling out more models.