Commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland is the latest OEM in India to announce suspension of manufacturing operations, due to the second wave of Covid-19 in the country.

Ashok Leyland has seven manufacturing plants across the country –  two each in Ennore and Hosur (Tamil Nadu), and one each in Bhandara (Maharashtra), Alwar (Rajasthan) and Pantnagar (Uttarakhand)

In a regulatory filing, the company said: “Ashok Leyland is committed to the wellbeing of our personnel, their families and the extended ecosystem, including customers, dealers and suppliers. With ‘Health & Safety First’ as the focus, our ‘Emergency Response Team’, a high level task force responsible for managing Covid-related protocols has revisited all the standard operating procedures and is ensuring the implementation of the same. Vaccination of employees and families is being monitored and enabled through vaccination camps across all facilities.”

“The demand outlook for all our products is expected to be affected temporarily. We have carefully studied the demand situation and efforts are being made to match the demand on the one hand, while being cognizant of the disruptions in the supply situation. At the same time, Ashok Leyland will continue to meet the requirement of defence vehicles and also ensure support of essential parts and aggregates for our fleet, enabling movement of essential goods and services including a 24 hour helpline to ensure high uptime of the vehicles already on road. Accordingly, the operations of our plants have been scaled down and are expected to work for 7 - 15 days in May. We will continue to respond to the Covid situation in the country as it unfolds.”

A number of other automakers in India including Maruti Suzuki, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, MG Motor India, Hero MotoCorp and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India have also announced plant shutdowns for varying durations.