Maruti Suzuki India Limited, India’s largest passenger car manufacturer said on Wednesday that it expects to emerge as an even stronger company by the time the economic slowdown ends.

Maruti Suzuki Chairman R C Bhargava, while addressing shareholders at the company’s 28th Annual General Meeting, said that the company has learnt many lessons from the worldwide recession which started in 2008.

“The recession has taught us many lessons and also confirmed the validity of our strategies. As a consequence, following the policies based on a good value system, we have weathered the recession much better than others. We are debt free and have a healthy cash balance. We have financed all growth from internal resources. Our continuous efforts at cost cutting and improving productivity, even in the good times, helped us in making reasonable profits despite the impact of higher commodity prices and a weaker rupee”, Mr. Bhargava said.

While thanking customers for their consistent support and sharing credit with them for Maruti Suzuki’s market share of over 55% in cars and vans, he said, “The future is bright and full of promise”. He elaborated “Indian automobile industry has huge growth potential and Maruti Suzuki has to find and implement ways by which it can continue to be a major participant in realizing this potential”.

On developing R&D capability at Maruti Suzuki he said, “With strong support from parent, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan, the company is on course to develop its ability to design compact cars. Maruti Suzuki is also building a modern R&D facility, complete with test tracks and crash test facilities at Rohtak.”  Giving account of strong R&D focus of the company, he added, “The company is rapidly increasing its engineering manpower, simultaneously persuading all its suppliers to also create the ability to design and develop new products in India, and to continuously upgrade component quality.”

Crediting the employees and the business associates for the company’s good performance during the downturn, Mr. Bhargava said, “The workers, supervisors, engineers and managers all work as a single team for the growth and prosperity of the company. Strong employees, dealers and vendors mean a strong Maruti Suzuki.

Tighten norms for driving license
The Maruti Suzuki Chairman shared with shareholders the company’s initiatives to promote road safety as part of its National Road Safety Mission, launched in December 2008.

He made an earnest appeal to the Government for enforcing tighter guidelines while issuing driving licenses.

Mr. Bhargava said, India’s record of road safety is despicable, and the country’s ratio of road accidents to vehicle population is probably the highest in the world. “We have 80 times more road fatality than Japan. In almost all other developed countries, rigorous training and testing precedes any issue of license. India lacks adequate infrastructure for training people on how to drive correctly and safely”, he said.

The importance of driver education, Mr. Bhargava explained, was perhaps not fully realized in India. This, Mr. Bhargava stressed, is a major area of the company’s concern and needs urgent attention of the government.

Maruti Suzuki, Chairman argued, “If car-makers can ensure that cars are rigorously checked before being road-ready, it is equally important that the person behind the wheel also knows how to drive safely.”

“Effective policing and deterrent fines have to be combined with a system in which people do not get driving licenses unless they know how to use the roads safely and with consideration for the rights of others. This requires investment in creating the infrastructure for this purpose and state governments formulating a time-bound programme”, Mr. Bhargava added.

He suggested that attitudinal training and medical fitness or vision fitness should be integral to a driver’s eligibility requirements for a license. “If after issue of license, a driver defaults, the errant driver should not be just fined, he should be put through a compulsory fixed number of hours of refresher training before he can reclaim his license.”

Maruti Suzuki has been training people on aspects of safe driving for nine years now through the Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTRs) at the state level, and smaller ‘Maruti Driving Schools’ near residential areas. These initiatives employ latest driving simulators and world-class training methodology evolved by Maruti Suzuki.

Currently besides the two IDTRs in Delhi, Maruti Suzuki is running 56 Maruti Driving Schools with its dealer partners, in 51 cities across the country. Since the start of these Road Safety initiatives over 5.9 lakh persons have been trained in safe driving at the company’s initiatives, till end August 2009.

On the lines of IDTRs in Delhi, Maruti Suzuki is in an advanced stage of starting Driving Training facilities in other states including Haryana, Uttarakhand and Gujarat.

Maruti Suzuki believes that if the required training capacity in the country was to be created, the role of the IDTRs would essentially be to train the instructors of government-approved driving schools, with simulators, proper training manuals and methodology.

Maruti Suzuki, as part of its’ National Road Safety Mission programme, will train 5-lakh people in safe driving over the next three years, including one lakh people from the economically challenged background.

“We offer ourselves as partners to all state governments who look for bringing in better standards of driver testing and licensing in the country”, Mr. Bhargava announced at the meeting.

Courtesy: Maruti Suzuki India Limited

Best Selling Maruti Suzuki Cars in India
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Maruti Grand Vitara (SUV)
Maruti Omni (VAN)
Maruti Versa (VAN)
Maruti 800 (Hatchback)
Maruti Alto (Hatchback)
Maruti Zen (Hatchback)
Maruti Swift (Hatchback)
Maruti WagonR (Wagon)

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Posted by Naresh Koshti on 3 September, 2009 12:57:21 PM IST #