A Manesar-Mundra rail link for Maruti

Maruti Suzuki India is eyeing incremental exports in the next few years, thanks to the dedicated export model A Star.

To augment exports, India’s largest car maker has also been seeking a dedicated railway line to transport its cars from the Manesar manufacturing plant to the Mundra port in Gujarat.

At present, the company has to load its cars on to trucks which take them to the nearest railway station in Gurgaon — a distance of 18 km.

Maruti has begun work with the Haryana government and the Ministry of Railways to get a dedicated railway track laid between the nearest station (called Patli) and its factory.

“This is a two-year project which will enable us to load cars directly on to the railway wagon instead of using trucks. Also, the cars so loaded will directly be put on the ships waiting at Mundra port without having to use any other mode of transport in between,” a senior company official said.

The official declined to speak about the cost involved in this project. Having already
bagged a 50,000 unit export order from Nissan Motor Co, Maruti has already increased it export target for this fiscal to 1,20,000 units.

Also, the company is targeting an over 10% growth in domestic sales this fiscal, to eight lakh units against 7.22 lakh in 2008-09, its managing director and CEO Shinzo Nakanishi said.

Maruti attributes the current uptick in sales to festive demand and said any revival would depend only on consumer sentiment post October.

Its sales have risen 21% till date in the current financial year, while that in April-June quarter, they grew 17.7%. In 2008-09, Maruti Suzuki’s sales grew 3.6% on year.

“Current demand looks good. But we would have to wait for October and November to see if there has been a real revival in demand. Current sales are up on festive demand,” executive officer, marketing and sales, Mayank Pareek said.

Maruti launched the new Estilo on Tuesday, which comes with the advanced, K-Series engine and design changes. The base version is priced at Rs 3.12 lakh while the top end (with ABS) comes for Rs 3.95 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

With agency inputs