Ashok Leyland, one of the largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles, has announced to shut down its production facility for five days from today i.e September 6, excluding Sunday at its Ennore plant in Chennai.
This comes after the slowdown in market hitting Medium & Heavy Commercial Vehicle (M&HCV) sales by 70 per cent in August 2019. The Chennai-headquartered automaker has seen almost 10 days of no-production during last month.
In a notice, the company informed its employees that the plant will not be working on September 6 and 7 of this week and September 10 and 11 of next week, while September 9 has already been declared as a sixth non-working day. In effect, this would mean that the factory will not be operating until September 11.
"As already informed, due to continuing sluggishness and contraction in the commercial vehicle market, the need has arisen to continue the corrective actions to safeguard the interest of the company. Hence, it has been decided to declare 06.09.2019, 07.09.2019, 10.09.2019 and 11.09.2019 as non-working days and 09.09.2019 as a sixth-day non-working day." read the official notice.
"The measure is due to continuing sluggishness and contraction in the commercial vehicle market. The need has arisen to continue the corrective actions to safeguard the interest of the company," it reads further.
During the month of August, the company has seen the production drop to 3,336 units from 11,135 units, a year ago. Total sales of M&HCVs, including buses, dropped by 63 per cent to 4,585 units from 12,420 units in the previous year.
The sales of the light commercial vehicle fell 12 per cent to 3,711 units in August 2019 from 4208 units in August last year. Total vehicle sales, including all these categories, declined 50 per cent to 8,296 units from 16,628 units in August, last year.
Domestic sales and exports of M&HCV trucks fell 70 per cent to 3,550 units from 11,717 units a year ago. However, sales of M&HCV buses rose 25 per cent to 1,799 units from 1,441 units last year. The sales of LCVs dropped 8 per cent to 3,882 units from 4,228 units, a year ago.
Total vehicles sales, domestic and exports, dropped 47 per cent to 9,231 units in August 2019 from 17,386 units in Augsut 2018.
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