Maruti Suzuki resumed production at its Manesar plant here on Tuesday amid heavy police presence, more than a month after the violent confrontation between the workers and the management officials left a senior manager dead and over hundred injured.
Single shift
Production was resumed partially with a single shift from 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. “Production was resumed with only 300 workers in a single shift during the daytime. It will gradually gather pace with more workers joining duty and the recruitment of permanent workers beginning early next month. The schedule of recruitment has been communicated to all existing contract workers through the contract agencies,” said a Maruti Suzuki official.
Besides 540 personnel of the India Reserve Battalion headed by Senior Superintendent of Police Yogender Nehra, more than a thousand police personnel were deployed in and around the plant to prevent any untoward incident.
“Some senior management officials were escorted from their homes to the office and back,” said Mr. Nehra.
Gurgaon Police Commissioner K. K. Sindhu visited the plant in the afternoon to take stock of the security arrangements.
Not taking any chances, the company has created a special force of 100 security guards, including ex-servicemen, at the plant in addition to the existing security force.
Besides, 40 personal security officers have been provided for the safety of managers and supervisors, while security arrangements were made at the residences of some employees.
Though there was no official word on how many cars were produced on the first day, the company had earlier announced that initially 150 cars were expected to be rolled out every day instead of the plant’s normal capacity of 1,500-1,700 units.
A delegation of villagers from the neighbouring areas also called on the management officials during the day and expressed support to the company.
“We met the management officials and assured them full co-operation and help in running the plant. We told them they should hire more and more locals to prevent repetition of such violence in future.
“The company assured us that it would recruit 5-10 per cent of the workers from our villages. The recruitments will be made next month,” said Aliyar village sarpanch Ishwar Singh.
Following the violence on July 18, Maruti Suzuki had, this month, terminated the services of more than 500 permanent workers for their alleged involvement. The move evoked protest from several trade and workers’ unions who held a demonstration this past week seeking reinstatement of workers and terming the action against them undemocratic and unconstitutional.
