Maruti Suzuki Baleno
Maruti Suzuki BalenoIBTimes India/ Ken Sunny

Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor Corporation's (SMC) new plant in Mehsana district in Gujarat is set to start operations from January 2017. SMC's first wholly-owned unit in India will supply vehicles and components exclusively to Maruti Suzuki India (MSI). The first vehicle to roll out from the plant will be the Baleno hatchback and around 10,000 units will be delivered to MSI by the end of this financial year.

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"The whole project (Gujarat) is on schedule. We will be selling cars from made in Gujarat from February. That remains, there is no change in that. During this financial year about 10,000 cars from Gujarat will be produced and delivered to us for sale," said R C Bhargava, chairman of MSI, reports Business Standard.

The opening of the Gujarat plant is expected to ease the pressure of the current two MSI plants in Manesar and Gurgaon. Maruti Suzuki will be expecting around 85,000 units of the Baleno from the Gujarat plant initially, of which around half will be the 1.3-litre diesel variant. The Indo-Japanese outfit already divulged plans to export the Baleno from India to over 100 countries. It has been touted that the Baleno will be the key product from the Gujarat plant.

The Baleno currently has an average sales of over 8,000 units per month in India. The 10,000 cars from Gujarat for this fiscal are not going to make huge impact. However, with the planned increase in production from next fiscal, Maruti Suzuki will be able cut down the waiting period of the Baleno, which is around five months at present.

The Gujarat plant has been developed with a total investment of Rs. 18,500 crore and the factory will have the capacity to make 2,50,000 vehicles annually. Maruti Suzuki plans to produce 2 million vehicles per year by 2022 in India, up from the 1.4 million at present. A major chunk of the planned production is expected to move to the Gujarat plant.

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