With a slowdown in the automobile sector taking a toll on the sales of Medium and heavy commercial vehicle (M&HCV), Ashok Leyland Ltd announced on Monday that the company will halt its production in five plants in September.
“We write to inform you that the following are the non-working days at our various plant locations during September 2019, due to continued weak demand for our products," said the auto major in a regulatory filing.
According to the filing, the following are the names of the plants and number of non-working days:
| Plants | Number of non-working days |
| Ennore | 16 |
| Hosur 1,2 and CPPS | 5 |
| Alwar | 10 |
| Bhandra | 10 |
| Pantnagar | 18 |
The company, country's second-largest commercial vehicle maker, reported a 70 per cent drop in truck sales in the domestic market in the last month to 3,336 units from 11,135 units, a year ago.
The sales of the light commercial vehicle fell 12 per cent to 3,711 units in August 2019 from 4,208 units in August 2018, while total vehicle sales declined 50 per cent to 8,296 units from 16,628 units in August last year.
Shares of Ashok Leyland were trading at Rs 63.05 apiece, down 1.33 per cent over the previous close at the BSE.
On September 4th, the country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said it has decided to suspend production at its Gurugram and Manesar plants in Haryana for two days due to the "slowdown".
The company had halted manufacturing operations at the two manufacturing facilities on September 7 and 9. "Both days will be observed as no production days," MSI said in a statement.
Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have also said they are suspending automobile manufacturing in order to adjust production with market demand.