First line in Gujarat by 2017: Bhargava.

The raging controversy on Maruti Suzuki India’s Gujarat plant finally ended on Thursday with the company’s shareholders voting in favour of the proposal.

The plant is being commissioned at Becharji on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. It will kick off with 2.5 lakh cars per annum in 2017 and will eventually have a capacity of 1.5 million units. Suzuki will invest ₹18,500 crore, perhaps, over a decade.

“The resolution has been passed quite smoothly. It has taken a long time to reach this stage,” RC Bhargava, Chairman, MSIL, told reporters here. Investors from far-flung centres such as Boston, New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore voted as also shareholders in Mumbai and Chennai.

However, 50 per cent of the shareholders did not vote, while 65,833,152 opted for a mix of e-voting and the ballot box. Eventually, 89.75 per cent gave the nod for setting up the Gujarat plant.

“It is never possible for a 100 per cent favourable vote. I think 10 per cent vote against (the proposal) is not something which should worry us at all,” said Bharagava.

“However, I think the issue is now closed. The first line in Gujarat will get commissioned in early 2017. We need the capacity as we are actually running out of capacities in Haryana (Gurgaon and Manesar combined). We have 100 per cent utilisation there and need to make some improvised capacity because of demand next year,” he added. The Haryana plants have an annual capacity of 1.4 million cars right now.

Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG) will make cars that MSIL, in turn, will buy and sell in the market. The company will start the first production line in 2017 and increase this to six as demand grows.

HBL