Renault To Halt Third Shift At Chennai Plant

After having put in extra hours to reduce the waiting period on its popular products, like the Kwid hatchback, the Renault-Nissan plant has now decided to halt one of the three work shifts at its production facility near Chennai. 

The carmaker, however, made it clear that no jobs would be affected in the process as all permanent, on-roll employees will be retained. It also informed that the third shift will be discontinued from the second week of December.

“In making this necessary change, we are protecting the jobs of permanent, on-roll employees who will all be reassigned other duties within the plant. There is a bright future ahead as we develop RNAIPL into an even more significant passenger car manufacturing hub for the Africa, Middle East and India region, and beyond,” said Colin MacDonald, managing director of the company.

The manufacturer had ramped up the production of the Renault Kwid in April earlier this year in order to tackle the waiting period for the hatchback that had touched six months in certain parts of the country. While enhancing the daily output from 1,000 cars to 1,600 cars, the carmaker was reportedly baking around 10,000 units per month.

The demand for the Kwid still continues to go north after the introduction of the 1.0-litre and AMT variants. However, the waiting time has been successfully brought down and the plant operations have been optimised to maximise the production in two shifts.

After investing heavily in India, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has accomplished an annual capacity of 4.8 lakh units annually. Its operations in the country support around 40,000 jobs, directly and indirectly.