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SEPTEMBER - 2019
A Report from the Trenches on Peenya Industrial Area
The downturn in the auto industry has getting picked up by the customer they
hit national – and international – were meant for. As Maruti's cars remain
headlines in the pink press. And the unsold, it is not making as many of them
headlines for once show that Peenya as before. And it doesn't buy the diesel
Industrial Area, one of the world's engines it needs from Bosch. And Bosch
biggest industrial zones, has seen large- doesn't need the fuel injection pump
scale shutdowns and lay-offs, which in parts that the CNC Company supplies.
itself is a consequence of auto ancillary
units hit hard by slump in sales. Curated The cascading effect has hurt thousands
below are several such instances of small and medium enterprises that
reported in the media, which reveal the line the roads of the Peenya Industrial
trials and tribulations of the small Estate.
entrepreneurs in the auto sector in
particular operating in Peenya Industrial In good times earlier, the factory foremen
Area: used to take pride in the fact that the
shop floor used to be so busy that there
A leading auto CNC Centre in Peenya was no place to even walk around. But
houses a mammoth shed with a hundred now, the emptiness is disturbing.
and twenty machines. But of these, a
growing number of the machines have Stocks used to be lifted and ferried to
now been reportedly shut. customers within three days at best, but
now the components are preserved in
Operating successfully now for over a oil-filled trays to prevent rusting, as they
decade, it is now working on only 18 out are already piled up for over three
of the 120 machines! Another 102 of the weeks.
machines, used to make components for
diesel engines, are idling. From Bad to Worse...
Another auto ancillary unit in Peenya
These components are usually sent to
Bosch - which then supplies the engines invested in machines to shift from BS 3
to Maruti and Mahindra. to BS 4 just two years back. Now, with
the changing requirements, nobody is
Until May, the CNC company employed buying those vehicles any longer.
three shifts of workers through the week. Everyone is waiting for April next year.
Two hundred of the 320 workers have
been 'let go' between July and August, as Besides, the move to have electric
stocks started piling up and order books vehicles as the norm for two-wheelers in
remained empty. And those who five years has put people off purchases
continue to work in the company are further.
wondering if they will also receive the In yet another example, another
pink slip and then what?
successful entrepreneur with 24 years of
experience has closed down one of his
Ever since their order books dried up,
this CNC Company – like many others two plants that supplied as many as 200
similar to it - realised that it was already components to Ashok Leyland,
over-loaded with stocks that were not including many for their defence
vehicles.
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