Maruti plant reopens with skeletal workforce

Of the 300 workmen called for duty, 75 turned up

Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) reopened its plant here on Tuesday, amid heavy police deployment, after a month-long lockout.

The company, which announced an indefinite lockout at the Manesar plant on July 21 following workers’ violence on July 18 which left one senior official dead and nearly a hundred injured, resumed production from the plant with a skeletal staff working in a single shift from 8 am to 4:30 pm.

“Around 75 workers turned up for duty at the plant out of 300 workforce planned by the company for resumption of its operations at its Manesar plant today (Tuesday),” Samundhar Singh, head of the adjacent Dana village Panchayat, said after meeting the company officials at the plant.

Rest of the workers did not up turn up on duty apprehending trouble. The company was hoping to roll out 150 cars every day instead of the plant's normal capacity of 1,500-1,700 units.

“I hope more workers will come once they get to know it was peaceful today. They were worried," Singh said.

Accompanied by some 20 village heads and their representatives, Singh visited the plant and met the company officials, expressing people’s support to them.

“We will not allow recurrence of any incident of violence which Maruti plant witnessed last month here. We will also provide security to the employees of the company. We will not tolerate anyone attempting to disrupt the peace of this industrial area again,” head of Kasan panchayat Mahesh said.

The plant was virtually turned into a fort with deployment of nearly 1500-odd security personnel which included 540 personnel from India Reserve Battalion and another 540 from Haryana police.

“The police force will remain deployed at the plant for the security of its workers and employees till the situation becomes completely normal,” Commandant of IRB (fourth battalion) Yogendra Singh Nehra said.

Adequate arrangements have been made to ensure safety and security of the company’s officials and other employees.

“I urge all employees of the company, who wish to join, should come and resume their duty,” he added.

Besides this, the company has formed a special force of some 100 private security personnel and ex-service men to look after the security of the plant.

Although the situation remained peaceful, a large number of youth converging on MSIL’s plant from different parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan since morning kept the police on toes.The youngsters were at Manesar upon hearing that there will be fresh recruitments at the plant on the day of its opening.