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Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Ltd said its new manufacturing facility in Haryana, the company's third in the state, would reach peak production capacity of 10 lakh units per annum in the next eight years entailing a total investment of ₹18,000 crore.
India's largest carmaker's hunt for a location for a new manufacturing facility has come to fruition recently as it completed the land allotment process for an 800 acres plot in Kharkhoda in Haryana's Sonipat district.
Discussions with the Haryana government had been on for a while to finalize a location for shifting Maruti's Gurgaon manufacturing facility, with an annual capacity of close to 7 lakh units, to the outskirts of the city in view of increasing congestion in the area.
The first plant with a manufacturing capacity of 250,000 vehicles per annum is expected to be commissioned within the year 2025 subject to administrative approvals. In the first phase, the investment would be over ₹11,000 crore.
The site will have space for capacity expansion to include more manufacturing plants in the future.
Notably, after setting up its first car plant at Gurugram in 1983, Maruti has steadily expanded its manufacturing footprint in Haryana by setting up a production facility at Manesar and a state-of-the-art R&D centre at Rohtak.
The two plants in Haryana - Gurugram and Manesar, together roll out around 15.5 lakh units annually.
Its parent Suzuki Motor Corp has also set up a facility in Gujarat with an installed production capacity of 7.5 lakh units per year after the third unit started production in April last year.
All units produced at Suzuki Motor Gujarat Pvt Ltd (SMG) are supplied to MSI.
Speaking at an event here to mark the formal announcement of land allotment to the auto major, Maruti chairman RC Bhargava said the 10 lakh production capacity at the Sonipat plant would help in catering to the demand in both domestic as well as export markets.
"We expect, subject to market conditions in India being favourable we will be able to reach our peak production capacity in the Sonipat plant in eight years. The plant will then become the largest site in the country with production capacity of 10 lakh cars," he noted.
The success of Suzuki in India has actually led to the strengthening of economic ties between India and Japan, Bhargava said.
He noted that the success of MSI shows that there is no alternative but for governments and the private sector to work together with mutual trust.
"Unfortunately there are still people in the country who do not accept this is the best way possible and they don't expect that having such kind of industrial growth and with state government participating in the success of industrial management and in the creation and of more competitive manufacturing, everybody benefits," Bhargava noted.
Poverty is eradicated and new jobs are created if both work together, he added.
Currently, Maruti has a cumulative production capacity of around 22 lakh units per annum across its two manufacturing plants in Haryana and parent Suzuki Motor's facility at Gujarat.