Maruti Suzuki says it has escaped the worst of this week’s catastrophic power failures that have paralysed vast swathes of northern India.
Up to 600m people in the northern areas are believed to have been without electricity for days as three key grids collapsed, following what is thought to be several energy-dependent States drawing more power than the system could process.
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Pictures from India show workers sent home packing train stations and even sitting on railway lines as Delhi’s already-crowded transport infrastructure ground to a halt.
However, Maruti maintains only some of its workforce were affected as its plants lie outside easy reach of the Delhi metro system and that it has its own natural gas captive power generation.
In any case, Maruti’s large Manesar plant around 30km from Delhi, remains shuttered with a substantial number of employees at home after riots at the factory left its human resources manager dead and a hundred staff hospitalised.
“We have our own captive power plant, so we were never dependent – we did not need power from the State government,” a Maruti Suzuki spokeswoman told just-auto from Delhi. “Sometimes it [power] is abundant and we even share a little bit with other companies.
“These are our joint venture companies which are very near to our factories. When we have excess power, we give some of that.”
Car sharing pools appear to be commonplace at Maruti and with the nearest Delhi region metro station 10km away, public transport was not overly problematic for the automaker, although it conceded some staff were affected due to the electricity shortage chaos.
The Manesar plant continues to remain shut as the company and staff recover from the recent extreme violence that saw a mob burn down large sections of the factory.
“The managers are still home – all of them are back home but recovery is a long way ahead,” said the Maruti spokeswoman. “They are undergoing counselling and therapy to overcome the shock of it.
Maruti’s natural gas power supplies both the Manesar and Gurgaon plants near Delhi.
