Kochi: The economic slowdown in the country has hit Apollo Tyres Ltd too forcing it to suspend production at its two manufacturing plants in Kerala due to the poor demand for tyres leading to huge inventory.
The company, a major automobile tyre manufacturer, gave an extended Onam holiday to the workers terming it as 'rescheduling' the production process as per the market requirement with the knowledge of the unions.
A spokesman of the company said, "we have only extended the Onam holidays by another three days and normal operations will resume on Monday."
The main manufacturing unit of the company at Perambra near Chalakudy is working at 50 percent of the installed capacity as the unsold stocks are nearly 100,000 units of tyres. The other manufacturing unit at Kalamassery also has an inventory of 60,000 units.
The employees are apprehensive that the slowdown may lead to a longer closure of the manufacturing units. Normally, the employees will get only half the salary during production rescheduling. Perambra unit has 1,800 permanent staff and 1,000 contract workers.
