Maruti Suzuki to invest Rs 1,900 crore in Rohtak R&D center

Maruti Suzuki will be investing Rs. 1,900 crore to expand its R&D facility located in Rohtak, Haryana. A major part of this investment will be dedicated towards vehicle safety evaluation and pacing up the development cycle of a product. The said investment will be made over a period of two years.

This is Maruti's second major investment in the Rohtak facility. The company had earlier invested a similar amount to build up the facility in the first phase. Spread over an area of 600 acres, the R&D center is partially operational at the moment and has played a key role in development of the company's compact SUV - the Vitara Brezza.

The automaker claims that its 5 models - Ignis, Baleno, Ertiga, Ciaz and S-Cross are already compliant with crash test norms that will soon come into force in the country. These vehicles are claimed to have gone through 35-40 tests each at the R&D center in Rohtak. Maruti is now aiming to make 75-80 percent of its on-sale car models compliant with the new safety norms, ahead of the mandatory deadline. The said investment will thus help the automaker to make the R&D center ready for the impending task.

According to the Central Government's plans, new models launched after October this year will need to comply with full frontal impact and offset impact crash tests. On the other hand, existing models will need to be tweaked to be compliant to these tests by October 2019.

Source: Business Standard