Maruti Suzuki India to increase R&D headcount

Gurgaon, May 12: With the Suzuki Motor Corp's (SMC) aim of making the Indian subsidiary, Maruti Suzuki India(MSI) a global centre for small car production; MSI is gearing up to increase the Research and Development department's headcount to 1000 by Mar 2010.

"Currently our R&D strength is 720 people and it will be increased to 1,000 by March, 2010. We are now looking out for more experienced people," said MSI Managing Executive Officer (Engineering) I V Rao.

He further said that SMC had already expressed its intent in making MSI a global centre apart from the Japan counterpart.

MSI's R&D centre will be equipped on par with Japan's including a crash test centre.

It is also working on all its models, including M800, to meet Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) emission norms adding that M800 model may cost higher than the present model by only 'a couple of thousands'.

MSI Chairman R C Bhargava in Apr said that the M800 and Omni will be phased out once BS-IV emission norms would be applied. To this Rao said that phasing out cars would be solely the decision of marketing department.

On May 15, Maruti will be launching its first BS-IV compliant car Ritz.

OneIndia News