Ford India head quits as company plans to end production there

NEW DELHI -- Ford Motor Co.'s India head Anurag Mehrotra has quit the company to pursue other career opportunities, days after the U.S. automaker said it would stop making cars in the Asian nation, taking a hit of $2 billion.

Mehrotra, according to his LinkedIn profile, has spent over a decade with Ford in India across multiple roles including marketing, sales and most recently as president and managing director.

A source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters that Thursday, Sept. 30, will be Mehrotra's last day. Mehrotra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ford India said in a statement it has put its director of manufacturing, Balasundaram Radhakrishnan, in charge of overseeing its restructuring in the country.

Ford's decision to stop making cars in India ends its more than two-decade long presence in a market it no longer sees as profitable. The move will affect around 4,000 employees, the company has said.

Ford is the fifth major automaker to cease vehicle manufacturing in India since 2017, following exits by General Motors and Harley Davidson from a market that is dominated by Asian rivals.

Despite being in India since the mid-1990s, Ford has less than 2 percent share of the passenger vehicle market and was using about 20 percent of its total production capacity of 440,000 cars a year across two plants.

Ford said earlier this month it plans to wind down production at its western India plant by the end of this year and at its southern India plant by the second quarter of 2022.

The announcement has upset hundreds of its factory workers, some of whom protested the decision this week.