India opens its biggest in-plant rail siding in a car facility, and the project is in the Maruti Suzuki plant based in Manesar to enhance green logistics and transportation efficiency.

On June 17, the Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and the Haryana CM, Nayab Singh Saini inaugurated the largest automobile in-plant railway siding at Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) Manesar plant. This infrastructure landmark is built in the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan and forms a part of the Haryana Orbital Rail Corridor (HORC) that has a length of 126 km.

The project implemented by Haryana Orbital Rail Corporation Ltd. has been funded by MSIL to the tune of 452 crore, of which 127 crore has gone into the development of its yard. It is a 46-acre building with an electrified 8.2 km track network, facilitating the dispatch of up to 4.5 lakh vehicles a year to 380 cities in India and major ports such as Mundra and Pipavav.

Maruti Suzuki MD & CEO Hisashi Takeuchi highlighted the importance of the project to sustainable automotive logistics, having estimated the project to save CO 2 emissions of 175,000 tonnes on an annual basis and cut down on fuel consumption by 60 million liters. To this end, MSIL has its targets of raising the share of railway-based automobile dispatches to 35 percent by FY2030-31 using this siding.

The development can not only make multi-modal automobile transport streamline but it also facilitates India aligning its Net Zero 2070 objective in line with SDG 13. This huge 11,709 crore rupee project is being implemented in a joint venture among HRIDC, HSIIDC, GMDA, All Cargo Logistics and Maruti Suzuki.

The siding is an indicator of how India is promoting green logistics in the automobile industry and validates its orientation toward clean, efficient, and future-ready transport means.