Honda Cars India Closes its Greater Noida Plant
According to an ETAuto report, Honda Cars India is closing production at its Greater Noida Plant this month after running it for 23 years. However, the company’s corporate office and R&D department will continue to operate from the same place.
Greater Noida facility manufactures Honda City, CR-V, and Civic but since December there is no production at this unit. The entire production is being shifted to Tapukara plant, having a total capacity of 180,000.
“Honda Cars India has stopped production at the Greater Noida plant and is shifting the entire production line to the Tapukara plant.”
Honda has reportedly announced a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its permanent employees handling manufacturing at the Greater Noida plant, effective from January 28, 2020.
This plant was started with an annual capacity of 30,000 units, and later it was upgraded to 100,000 units. The plant employed about 2,000 in the manufacturing department. Now the company has about 1,000 permanent employees. Most of them have opted for VRS and the rest are transferred to the Tapukara plant.
The Tapukara plant in Rajasthan has a capacity of 1,80,000 units. Honda started operation in 1997 in a joint venture with Usha International of the Shriram Group as Honda Siel Cars India. In 2012 it got out of the JV and changed the name of its Indian operations to Honda Cars India Ltd. The carmaker had invested about INR 9,000 crore in both the plants.
The carmaker has been facing a tough time for the last two years, which got aggravated with the COVID-19. In August 2019, Honda reported a 51.28 percent de-growth in domestic sales at 8,291 units as compared to 17,020 units it sold a year ago. The 6 months period from April to September saw sales decline 35 percent to about 60,000 units. Sales have dipped almost 50 percent over the past four years and hence the company closes Greater Noida Plant.
