Automaker to resume operations, service sector still waiting

Shubhra Pant | TNN | May 5, 2020, 07:45 IST

Gurgaon: With the government easing lockdown conditions, manufacturers plan to resume production soon. And some have already began the maintenance of their plant machinery. However, the services sector mostly plans to wait before reopening offices.
For instance, Hero MotoCorp, the country’s leading two-wheeler company, has announced that it’s in the process of resuming operations in its Gurgaon plant. Maruti, India’s largest passenger carmaker, however, would prefer to wait a little longer before reopening its Manesar plant, despite having nod. The auto sector has been the hardest hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.
“To begin with, Hero MotoCorp is commencing operations in a graded manner at three of its manufacturing plants — Gurgaon and Dharuhera (both in Haryana), Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and additionally Global Parts Centre (GPC) at Neemrana in Rajasthan. These manufacturing plants reopen from Monday and production will commence from Wednesday,” said a company spokesperson.
TOI has also learnt that Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India is expected to resume production by next week.
“While none of the major companies has reopened their plants, they are basically doing maintenance and fumigation work. In Haryana, permissions have been granted by the government but there are some hiccups and it’ll take a few days for things to restart like movement pass downloading issues from governemtn portal,” said Chandan Sengupta, vice chairman, CII’s Gurgaon zone. The organisations in the services sector, on the other hand, largely prefer to work from home and will continue to do so till lockdown is completely over.