Workers prepare to load a Maruti Suzuki Baleno car into a train at India’s first automobile in-plant railway siding project at the Maruti Suzuki Hansalpur plant, about 80 km from Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday inaugurated “India’s first automobile in-plant railway siding” at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s (MSIL) wholly owned subsidiary Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Ltd.’s unit in Becharaji, Gujarat, via video conferencing.
A part of the Gati Shakti programme, the in-plant railway siding is expected to reduce carbon footprint in logistics, bring down fossil fuel consumption, and reduce road congestion, MSIL said. Once fully operational, the facility can dispatch 3 lakh cars annually to 15 destinations across India, it added.
The project is a collaboration between Gujarat Rail Infrastructure Development (G-RIDE), Indian Railways, the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), and MSIL.
“Today marks a significant milestone as we become India’s first automobile company to have a railway siding facility within its manufacturing plant,” Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director & CEO, MSIL, said in a statement.
“As we gear up to double our production capacity from present 2 million units per annum to 4 million units per annum by 2030-31, the dispatches of vehicles from railways too will increase multi-fold. This in-plant railway facility reinforces our commitment towards sustainable mobility,” he added.
