Maruti Suzuki Dispatch Via Indian Railways Cross Record 20 Lakh Vehicles

Maruti Suzuki has significantly scaled up vehicle dispatches via Indian Railways from 65,700 units in FY 2014-15 to 447,750 units in FY 2023-24

Maruti Suzuki has now achieved an Eco milestone of 2 million (20 lakh) vehicle dispatches through Indian Railways. This has offset 10,000 metric tonnes of CO2 and seen a saving of around 270 million liters of fuel. This is a significant step in the company’s Green Logistics initiative that had commenced from FY14-15 and increased 6 fold over the past decade.

Maruti Suzuki Green Logistics Initiatives

Vehicle dispatches via Indian Railways started off at 65,700 units or 5% in FY14-15. Though it remained at a lower rate of increase over the next 5 years, dispatches have increased several fold since FY19-20 by 11.6% and has now been scaled up to 4,47,750 units or by 21.5% in FY23-24.

This feat makes Maruti Suzuki India’s first automobile company to achieve this eco-milestone. Transportation of vehicles via railways offers several benefits over transportation via road. Railways offer a more congestion free, safer and energy efficient mode of transport. These dispatches are dome to over 20 destinations across India to over 450 cities. Plans are also afoot to significantly scale up vehicle dispatches via railways in the years ahead.

Speaking on the milestone, Mr. Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director and CEO, Maruti Suzuki India Limited said, “Maruti Suzuki pioneered the use of railways for vehicle dispatches over a decade ago by becoming the first company in India to obtain the Automobile-Freight-Train-Operator license. Since then, the company has systematically increased its share of vehicle dispatches using railways.

Through our sustained efforts in green logistics, we have achieved outstanding results including cumulative reduction of ~10,000 metric tonne of CO2 emissions and ~270 million Litre of cumulative fuel savings. With our production capacity nearly doubling from about 2 million units to 4 million units by FY 2030-31, we plan to augment the use of railways in vehicle dispatches, close to 35% over the next 7-8 years. We stand committed to the Government of India’s Net zero emissions target by 2070.”

This initiative is an extension of the company’s endeavours in June 2024 wherein Maruti Suzuki launched a Biogas plant at its Manesar facility to boost sustainability and renewable energy efforts. This plant is set to produce 0.2 tons of biogas per day thereby generating around 100,000 standard cubic meters of biogas per annum thus bringing about lower CO2 emissions by approximately 190 tonnes each year.

India’s First Automobile In-Plant Railway Sliding Facility

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s first automobile in-plant railway siding at the Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG) plant. The new in-plant railway siding has the capacity to dispatch 3,00,000 vehicles per annum. It has been set up in a collaboration between Maruti Suzuki India and Gujarat Rail Infrastructure Development (G-RIDE). Following this success, a similar project of in-plant railway siding is currently underway at the Maruti Suzuki Manesar facility and will be put into operational soon.