Ford will have to weigh all options for setting up electric plant in India

The Maraimalainagar facility near Chennai is a logical choice especially with Sanand tipped to be sold to Tata Motors but there are other issues to reckon with, says Murali Gopalan.

- Murali Gopalan

Ford has been making news in India over the last few weeks even though it is over seven months since it made known that it was going to stop producing cars for this market.

In February, the Centre announced that the American automaker was among those entities which qualified for its PLI (production linked incentive scheme) where the core objective is self-reliance. In Ford's case, it was made amply clear that this meant production of electric vehicles and components for overseas markets.

Then more recently came the news of Tata Motors likely to acquire the company's Sanand plant in Gujarat even though there has been no official confirmation yet. For all practical purposes, it is a done deal except that there will have to be a lot of administrative work to be carried out before the plant finally changes ownership status from Ford to Tata Motors.

Yet, as part of its exit plans, the Dearborn-headquartered company has announced that it will continue to produce and export engines at Sanand for its global operations. This means that only the automobile business will pass on to Tata Motors while issues relating to absorbing the existing workforce will have to be sorted out by the two companies and the Gujarat government.

So this leaves the Maraimalainagar facility near Chennai which Ford had established two decades earlier when it decided to grow its India presence beyond the joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra at Nashik to assemble the Escort. It was from this Chennai plant that the popular Ikon model rolled out and cemented Ford as a brand to reckon with in this competitive market.