Leading commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland and Utility Vehicle major Mahindra & Mahindra are shutting down plants and scaling down manufacturing operations for a period of four days to up to three weeks in order to tackle the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak.
Both the automakers have informed the BSE in a regulatory filing on Monday.
In a statement to BSE, Ashok Leyland said that it will scale down operations and run plants for seven to 15 days in May and will close the plant for the rest of the month. Mahindra, on the other hand, announced that due to the evolving COVID situation in the country, the company has scaled up its efforts to ensure the health and safety of its employees, associates and supporting ecosystem.
Accordingly, the Automotive Division of the company has decided to pre-pone its scheduled maintenance of four working days in each of its manufacturing plants to the month of May 2021, in a staggered manner. This was originally scheduled for June 2021. The company continues to work closely with its dealers and suppliers to minimise the impact of disruption in operations due to localised lockdown restrictions in various parts of the country.
The latest announcements by these companies are in line with other automakers including Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India and Toyota Kirloskar Motors, undertaking similar measures.
NB: Image is representational