Bangalore: Even as the global meltdown is forcing companies across the world to lay off people by the hundreds GM India plans to hire upto 500 more people by 2009, said a top official of the company.

P Balendran, vice-president GM India said, "We will be increasing our number of employees from 4,000 to 4,500 by 2009."

The newly hired staff will be split between the company's car plant in Talegaon, its powertrain facility also in Talegaon and engineering centre in Bangalore.

Balendran said the company can increase the capacity of Talegaon car plant, which commenced operations in September 2008 from 1.40 lakh units at present to 3 lakh units whenever it wants.

Sluggish market conditions in India are forcing nearly all auto companies to offer discounts and freebies along with their products and GM is no exception.

The company is offering a discount scheme ranging between Rs2,000 to Rs50,000 across its product range.

Apart from this the company is giving a discount of Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 for government and PSUs staff who have recently received over 100 per cent salary from the government during the festival season who have recently received over 100 per cent salary from the government.

These discounts would continue till the end of this month said Balendran. Auto and consumer durable companies are looking at the 1.6 million-odd PSU employees as a target audience.

Balendran said there was a lack of liquidity in the market due to high interest rates leading to low car financing. Hence the market was sluggish. He said earlier the sales growth during the festive season used to be in the range of 25-30 per cent had come down to 5-7 per cent this season.

''The market is sluggish and the usual sales growth during the festive season, which used to be in the range of 25-30 per cent had come down to 5-7 per cent this season,'' he said.