Production at Maruti Suzuki may be impacted in the near future as it gears

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up to reach its target of manufacturing 1 million cars this financial year.

An ongoing strike at Denso Haryana, one of Maruti’s major suppliers of multi point fuel injection systems, fuel gasket pumps, and engine electronic control units, has forced the component supplier to hire temporary workers for a three-month period to restore full capacity daily production.

Denso Haryana is one of the four subsidiary companies in India of Japan-based auto parts maker De­nso Corporation.

“If the situation continues, we may not be able to supply as per demand,” a pe­rson privy to developments at Denso Haryana said. Mo­re than 90 per cent of Denso Haryana production is supplied to Maruti, while the remaining is supplied to Toyota Kirloskar Motor and Hindustan Motors. Denso Hary­ana makes 3,000 units of pa­rts daily.

“About 80-100 workers including the ones that were suspended are carrying out a procession outside the facto­ry. We have hired about 200 temporary workers to restore full production,” a senior official at Denso Haryana on condition of anonymity said.

The HR official added th­at about 150 permanent wo­rkers have not returned to work after Holi because of fear of violence as the stri­king workers had made thre­atening phone-calls to their families.

Satish Kumar, secr­etary of the union of the str­iking workers at Denso Har­yana said workers would res­ume work only if the company took all the suspended workers back.

Chief general manager for marketing, Maruti Suzuki, Shashank Srivastava said the company was aware of the strike. “Our supply chain is doing things to sort the matter out,” he said.

People following the negotiations between workers and management at Denso said Maruti is working ov­ertime to meet the one mi­llion-production target th­is fiscal year while Suzuki Mo­tor chairman O Suzuki is likely to visit India on March 22. It has argued strongly with Denso management to ensure that there is no disruption while sending an advisory to all its vendors to ma­ke the one million mark a reality.

On February 17, 36 workers at the Denso Haryana factory were suspended due to demands of creating an labour union, wh­ich the ma­nagement oppo­sed. Denso’s management has decided to take back only 20 of the suspended workers so far. Of a total strength of 354 workers, about 125 permanent workers who did not want to take part in the strike are still working at the factory.

Financial Chronicle in its March 1 edition reported that Denso Haryana had been reporting a daily loss in production to the extent of 25 per cent since February 17 due to the strike.