By Venkatachari JagannathanChennai, May 26 : Franco-Japanese joint venture car maker Renault Nissan Automotive India Ltd that announced closure of its plant near here for five days to prevent Covid-19 spread has to roll out 34,964 units to meet export obligations between May-October 2021.
In addition, the company has to roll out 45,000 Nissan Magnite and Renault Kiger cars to be delivered for Indian buyers.
Renault Nissan Automotive is the car manufacturing joint venture between French company Renault and Japan’s Nissan Motor Company.
The company’s plant near here rolls out different brands of Renault and Nissan vehicles for domestic and overseas markets.
On Tuesday the company announced plant closure between May 26-30 and restart on May 31 after the worker’s union had announced indefinite boycott of work from May 26 onwards till Covid-19 safety precautions are implemented to their satisfaction.
The union – Renault Nissan India Thozhilalar Sangam (RNITS) had complained to the Madras High Court that Renault Nissan Automotive is seeking to take advantage of the exemption granted by the Tamil Nadu government without even bringing down the level of production to only so much as may be necessary to meet the export commitments.
According to Renault Nissan Automotive it has to roll out 34,964 cars (Renault cars 10,982, Nissan cars 23,982) between May-October 2021 for export markets.
The company also told the Court that any delay in fulfilling the export orders which is required to be sent, among others to fleet based markets in the Gulf, will not only entail penalty and in addition, losing the business.
Further car exports need advance planning to load the ships so that demurrage and other port charges are not incurred, the company said.
The company’s exports revenue stood at about Rs 4,615 crore in 2018-19, about Rs 5,500 crore in 2019-20 and about Rs 3,159 crore in 2020-21.
Office bearers of RNITS told IANS that the company can reduce the number of units produced per hour to 20 which can result in maintaining social distance.
At reduced production levels and working in three shifts, 75 per cent of the volumes could be achieved, they added.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians
.
