Mahindra and Mahindra Motors on Sunday announced the suspension of all its manufacturing and operation activities in its plants across India, thus becoming the latest automaker to do so. In a press release, Mahindra & Mahindra said that in light of heightened concern on spread of Coronavirus in the State of Maharashtra, they have decided to suspend the manufacturing operations at their Nagpur Plant with immediate effect and Chakan (Pune) and Kandivali (Mumbai) from Monday night onwards.
It added that it had announced proactive, preventive and preemptive measures at all their offices and manufacturing locations in India, to ensure employee safety and contain the spread of the CoronaVirus (Covid-19) and that employee well being and safety are matters of utmost priority. “We are carefully monitoring the rapidly evolving Covid-19 pandemic and will continue to take swift and appropriate action on other plants in the State of Maharashtra and across the nation should the situation change. Meanwhile, all our offices across the country have already implemented Work from Home. Several other measures including highest standards of hygiene and promoting social distancing at all the offices and manufacturing locations across the country have been taken,” said the company.
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Mahindra had a string of upcoming launches with- the new-gen Thar, the new-gen Scorpio and XUV500 facelift scheduled later this year. Now that all operations have come to a sudden halt the launches of the above-mentioned cars are likely to be impacted. Another challenge up its sleeve has been the clearance of BS4 vehicles inventory which is supposed to be a considerable amount and with the recent outburst of the Covid-19, the sales of these vehicles have also taken a huge hit. Until and unless the Supreme Court decides to extend the deadline for the transition from BS4 to BS6 by listening to the plea filed by Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India(FADA), Mahindra & Mahindra, like many other auto manufacturers are set to incur substantial losses which is definitely not a good sign for the Auto Industry.