Maruti to inaugurate new 700-acre R&D facility in Manesar

Eight automobile engineers from Detroit, the car capital of the US will join Maruti Suzuki's operations in India in the next two months. The move comes as part of Maruti's plans to set up the largest research and development centre for the parent company outside Japan.

IV Rao, managing executive officer (engineering ) of Maruti Suzuki said the engineers have tremendous capabilities in automobile research and engineering with basic specialization in car design, styling and modeling, engine development and manufacturing and testing and hybrid technology.

Rao was part of a senior delegation which visited Detroit in April this year to explore possibility of recruiting engineers who were laid off in the wake of General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies. Tata Motors too had undertaken a similar exercise.

The move to hire car engineers and designers from the US coincides with the inauguration of the company's 700 acre facility for R&D in Manesar which is part of the company's Rs9,000 crore investment to be completed by 2010. The company currently employs around 700 employees at its R&D centre which will be scaled up to 1,000 by 2010.

Most of the engineers who have been recruited are Indians who are desirous of leaving the US to work in India. The engineers will be based at the middle management level and some would be taken on contracts.

Meanwhile the company is pushing ahead with its plans to export 1.2 lakh cars during 2009-10 of which a lakh will be the A-Star model, its newest hatchback.