Tata Motors halts production at Pune plants from April 15
Tata Motors halts its vehicle production activities from its factories in Pune from April 15 to April 30. It is the first auto company to have shut down plants in the wake of guidelines from the Maharashtra government released on April 13.
“As per Government of Maharashtra orders for handling COVID-19 outbreak, we have stopped vehicle manufacturing since April 15, 2021 up to April 30, 2021. All our employees are advised to stay back at home only,” Tata Motors stated in the letter written to the MIDC police station in Bhosari, Pune.
“In order to ensure the security and maintain electricity, water and air line on three-shift basis we are calling employees in each shift for managing ‘essential services areas’ i.e dispensary, DG set operation, fire fighting, water supplies, 22Kv substation, security vigilance and effluent treatment plants,” the letter added.
On April 13, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray had announced a lockdown notification in the state and ordered most establishments and public places to be closed in the state except those which are deemed essential, including grocery shops, hospitals, banks, and stock exchanges.
He had said that All factories/industries except some export-oriented units and those making items needed for essential services “must stop their operations”. E-commerce deliveries are allowed but only for essential products.
Thackeray had said that “Livelihoods are important, but life is more important.
The Pune facility of Tata Motors is located in the Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial belt of Maharashtra. The state-of-the art R&D centre in this facility sets the benchmark for automotive research and development in India. The Pune facility also houses some of the best manufacturing facilities in the automotive industry; for example, its Product Engineering Division has one of the biggest and the most versatile tool-making divisions in the country.
The most versatile of Tata Motors’ manufacturing plants, the Pune facility is a full range supplier of both commercial and passenger vehicles. It boasts of delivering more value per vehicle, since it is a highly vertically integrated plant as regards to core processes such as engines, gear box, paint shop, etc.
The facility’s commercial vehicles plant produces around 60 base models with three or four variants each. Six assembly lines cope with the diverse range of vehicles that roll out of the plant, like HMCV, ILCV trucks, ICV bus chassis, ICV Ultra range trucks and bus chassis, UVs, pickups, Winger vans, SUVs, etc. It can produce 730 vehicles per day, working in two shifts.
Tata Motors’ range of Defence vehicles are also produced here.
