WABCO India plants to work 4 days/week in March on low demand

Automotive components and technology company WABCO India on Tuesday said that four of its plants will be operational for four days a week in March owing to weak demand for the products.

The revised schedule will be applicable at its plants in Ambattur (Tamil Nadu), Panthnagar (Uttarakhand), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), the company said in a regulatory filing.

Fridays would be considered as leave for the employees, it said.

"In view of the weak demand and based on customer schedules," the company said that the four plants "will work for four days a week during March 2020 with Fridays being considered as leave".

Headquarted in Chennai, WABCO India is a supplier of technologies and services that improve the safety, efficiency and connectivity of commercial vehicles in India. The company is a manufacturer and local market leader in advanced braking systems, conventional braking products and related air assisted technologies and systems.

As of financial year 2018-19, WABCO India Ltd had over 4,400 employees and had reported Rs 2,854 crores in sales.

The slowdown in the automotive sector due to several factors ranging from liquidity crisis to the transmission from BS-IV to BS-VI norms have impacted both vehicle and component manufacturers in a major way in the past one year.

In February, all the major automobile companies in India reported a decline.

Mahindra & Mahindra reported a 42 per cent fall in its total vehicle sales in February at 32,476 units, while Tata Motors reported a 34 per cent year-on-year fall.

Maruti Suzuki India reported a 1.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) fall in its total sales last month at 1,47,110 units. IANS