General Motors India all set for expansion

With the plan of expanding the existing production capacity up to 80 percent, American Automobile Company GM’s subsidiary General Motors India said that the company will hire about 1,000 people by 2012. With this expansion company is hoping of increasing the number of cars manufactured in the two units up to 4.1 lakh units per annum.

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As per reports, GM is planning to invest $500 million (approx. INR 2,200 crore) for increasing the production capacity along with research and development activities. Currently General Motors India has two production plants in India – one in Halol, Gujarat and another in Talegaon, Maharashtra.

President and Managing Director of GM India, MD Karl Slym said that the company is investing $500 million for expanding the outputs at both Halol and Talegaon. Furthermore he said that for meeting the workforce requirements, General Motors India will hire 1,000 people by the end of 2012. He mentioned that the hiring will also include the headcount required for company’s R&D department at Bangalore. However, their main purpose is to recruit people for the two manufacturing plants.

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As per sources, around 2000 people are currently working in R&D activities at Bangalore and same headcount is working in the two plants of GM India. The Halol plant of General Motors currently manufactures 85,000 units while Talegaon unit dispatches around 1.4 lakh units per annum. However, after hiring the production capacity at Halol plant will elevate up to 1.1 lakh units and Talegaon unit will manufacture up to 3 lakh cars. Slym also said that the construction work is already started at the two plants for capacity expansion and company is going to spend about $250 million investment in each plant by 2012.

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According to reliable sources, the expansion is the result of General Motors launching the (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) SAIC's commercial vehicles (CVs) in India by the end of this year. Slym said that Halol plant will manufacture the CVs. He also mentioned that at with two production lines available at Halol, one will be used for commercial vehicles and other for cars.