Tata Motors on Friday (30th January) posted a net loss of Rs 263.26 crore for the third quarter in 2008-09 due to fall in volume and high material cost. Meanwhile it said its Rs 1-lakh car Nano will take at least one year before it is launched from Sanand plant in Gujarat.

 

Following a drastic fall in demand, the company reduced the number of headcount in the third quarter, Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant told reporters. But he did not give the figures of manpower reduction.

 

Tata Motors CFO Ramakrishnan said that, the company has also set a cost reduction target of Rs 1,000 crore in the next three years. Adding that the company has cut down on inventories drastically, he said that, it is also reviewing the capacity expansion and modernization plans announced earlier.

 

In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the company said, during the quarter under review, the total income from operations declined 34.38 per cent to Rs 4,758.62 crore from Rs 7,251.83 crore in the same period in the last fiscal.

 

For the December quarter, the company has incurred a foreign exchange loss of Rs 226.52 crore as against a forex gain of Rs 27.51 crore in the same period last year.