Thaindian News

Ranchi, Dec 6 (IANS) Aiming to avoid a build up of inventories, auto major Tata Motors’ Jamshedpur plant will close Dec 8-14 for the third time in less than six weeks, an official said Saturday. “To strike a balance between orders and production, the company has decided to close down the plant for six days between December 8 and 14,” Tata Motors spokesperson P.J. Singh told IANS over telephone from Jamshedpur.

Since Dec 7 and Dec 14 are Sundays, the plant will effectively be closed for eight days.

“The unavailability of finance coupled with high interest rates right across the industry is forcing customers to postpone purchases. This will call for appropriate action from Tata Motors from time to time to match the production with demand and avoid unnecessary build up of inventories,” a company stament said.

Tata Motors had earlier closed the plant Nov 6-8 and Nov 25-29, citing the same reason.

The company has also asked 3,000 temporary employees not to report for work.

The closure has affected around 6,000 permanent employees. According to company sources, 50 percent of the closure period salary is adjusted to the employees’ leave while the rest is borne by the company.

Tata Motors, which produced 125,000 heavy vehicles last fiscal, has rolled out only 50,000 this fiscal due to the economic downturn.

The target set for this fiscal is around 150,000 units. However, company sources said production would not cross 100,000 vehicles if the current situation persisted.