Team-BHP - ET & Maruti disagree on making cars at Gurgaon

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- - ET & Maruti disagree on making cars at Gurgaon (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/118179-et-maruti-disagree-making-cars-gurgaon.html)

Maruti has an installed capacity of 8.5 lakh cars in Gurgaon, over a 300 acre facility. Gurgaon produces the Maruti 800, Alto, Eeco, Wagon R, Omni, Estilo and Gypsy.

I think ET jumped the gun with a front page story that read "Maruti to stop making cars at Gurgaon". When I first read the headline, I looked at the date thinking its April 1. Yes, that's how ridiculous I thought the report is. After all, do you remember the recent guffaw : Ford withdrawing from Gujarat (ET later deleted the Ford article from their website).

Here's what Maruti has to say in response to the ET Article:

Quote:

Maruti Suzuki will not shut down car production at Gurgaon plant

During a media interaction here on Saturday, the Company’s top management had announced plans to set up a diesel engine manufacturing plant in Gurgaon.

One newspaper report has misinterpreted the comments and reported that Maruti Suzuki will shut down production of cars in the Gurgaon plant and shift carmaking to Gujarat.

The Company denies this report.

Maruti Suzuki would like to reiterate that:

1. The Company has no plan whatsoever to stop production of cars in the Gurgaon plant. Car making operations at the Gurgaon plant will continue.

2. The Company will reduce the number of cars produced at Gurgaon plant and make available space for expanding the engine manufacturing capacity, including a new diesel engine plant.

3. The Company will continue to increase production at Manesar, where a third plant with an annual capacity of 2.50 lakh units is coming up. Once the capacity in Manesar is fully utilized, the Company plans to set up a new facility in Gujarat.

4. Together, the facilities at all three locations – Gurgaon, Manesar and Gujarat - will be used by the Company to manufacture vehicles to meet market demand.

Thank you.

I was a bit taken aback when I read this too. I mean why try to fix something if it ain't broke. I am surprised how ET misinterpreted this and jumped the gun.

Surprising for ET to misinterpret about Maruti.

Lets see what ET has to say about this article and would be soon deleted from its website just as they did for the Ford ones.

Is this just to gain readers or how does this work?

That's a breather! I mean MSL could not even dare think to ferry out of the Gurgaon facility. You can't just shut down a facility manufacturing your bread and butter. Surely the last few months had their hiccups and focus would have been on how to minimize losses in future, but shutting down would have been a too ambitious decision.

Misinterpretation by ET can only be called "reading too much between the lines".

Once the Manesar, Gurgaon and Gujarat facility are in full swing, I wonder what will be the sales analysis for those months. MSL all the way. Why not, I think their only biggest market outside JAPAN is India and only India.

Exactly, I read in Mint, they had something else to say, while ET was more of sensational news. Seemed like company is taking revenge on the strikes it had to face and is taking on the state govt and employee union.

However going through reports, addition of new plant at Gujarat meaning realigning their resources to concentrate on diesel engines at Gurgaon.

Time to stop reading ET.

Reading the article, i got the impression that, there are no plans to upgrade the existing production lines with robotics etc. Also no new models are produced at this plant. So eventually once the existing models are phased out, the production will be gradually stopped (Depending on how long people will by M800 and Omni). I assume, once the GJ plant comes up, the Alto production will be moved there, leaving less volume models at the Gurgaon plant. True that ET sensationalized the news, but there could be some facts too. Also this could be a ploy to control the notorious trade unions at Gurgaon plant. If you play hard ball, we know how to deal with it kind of message from MS.

It is amusing in a very non-pleasant way to see ET resorting to such journalism. A lot of times the media publishes news that the company in question denies in the beginning but the news holds true later. However, I don't see that happening in this case!

I'm sure quite a few among the labour class in Gurgaon would have skipped a beat if they read this article!

Has ET gone bonkers? Whats with their recent crappy articles? Maybe a wee bit extra terrestrial effect has gone over their minds.

ET is the best newspaper coming out of 'times of India group', which is not saying much. Their shoddy standards of journalism means a national newspaper ends up looking like a full spread tabloid!!

Another shocker from ET :uncontrol.
The quality of journalism is going down the drain in TOI group. Stopped reading these tabloids coming out of TOI group long time back.
IMHO The Hindu Businessline is a much better alternative.

Misinterpreted :) , now sure how this is happening so often these days with news channels and new papers. This is probably a way to get more attention and more readers, yellow journalism I guess.

Very surprised by the ET guffaw. I guess they havent learnt from their past mistakes. Maybe someone insider from MS must be feeding the ET with some gossip news and ET without verifying the facts just goes ahead and publishes it. Bad journalism.

I guess the credibility of ET is at stake now with all such wrong news reporting.:Frustrati

Funny because I believe it's not at all illogical.
Maruti Suzuki faced certain problems in their Manesar plant - usually these things can be controlled using local politicians.

If Gujarat (= politicians) is assuring a comparatively peaceful life for the enterprise, why won't they think of shifting most of the products there?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidindica (Post 2726948)

Has ET gone bonkers? Whats with their recent crappy articles? Maybe a wee bit extra terrestrial effect has gone over their minds.

I agree. ET is, and has been for a while, one the few national papers I read. But recently, I've been wondering whats up with their editorial and reporting teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by C300 (Post 2727074)

The quality of journalism is going down the drain in TOI group. Stopped reading these tabloids coming out of TOI group long time back.

Honestly, LOL. and that is a sarcastic LOL. Not directed to you, please understand, but saying 'quality of journalism' and TOI in the same sentence is quite oxymoronic. Having said that, ET not really a tabloid. Used to be, and prolly still is, pretty respectable.

I was an intern with TOI. I quit because TOI believes in "grabbing headlines", and no real content. In the 2 weeks i was there i realised that this group was only about soft core pictures and celebrity gossip. Thats it. The garbage this newspaper writes is only to well known.