Maruti hiring fresh workers at Manesar; Swift output picks up

Despite the ongoing unrest at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant in Haryana over the management's insistence that all workers sign a 'good conduct bond', the company said output of its best-selling Swift car reached near-normal levels of 500 units on Monday, hiring fresh workers.

Maruti plans to increase Swift's production to around 18,000 units a month to help meet the delivery schedule for the 90,000 bookings of the Swift, currently the most popular model of the country's biggest carmaker by sales.

According to the company, out of the almost 1,000 permanent and 1,500 temporary workers at the plant, a mere 95 have signed the bond and resumed duty.

"We have also recruited 50 more trained engineers at the plant, taking the total strength of available workers to over 1,100. This will help the company to bring down its dependence on permanent workers," the company said in a statement.

It added that it would start large-scale hiring today to replace those who do not sign the bond, which the company sees as necessary to ensure that production is not sabotaged internally and quality is maintained.

Some 1,500 workers on Monday staged a rally near the Gurgaon mini secretariat, seeking the intervention of the district authorities to end the stalemate.