General Motors India (GMI) has sacked Anil Mehrotra, Chief Finance Officer (CFO), holding him accountable for the recall of 1.14 lakh units of multi-utility vehicle Chevrolet Tavera.
Besides Mehrotra, 24 more officials, directly or indirectly responsible for the recall issue, could be shown the door in the next few days from the company’s operations in Gurgaon (corporate office), Halol and Talegaon (facilities).
Sources from the company told Business Line that Mehrotra was asked to leave at least two days before GMI announced the voluntarily recall of the vehicle.
“He was responsible for approving all bills and any purchases and budgets related to manufacturing plants (Halol and Talegaon),” a source from the company said, and added that by GM’s global policy, any official found responsible for any misdoing will be fired.
A questionnaire sent to the company remained unanswered.
Long association
Mehrotra, who was appointed CFO of GMI last January, has been with GM for more than 12 years. He joined GMI in 2001 as Vice-President and CFO and held the position till 2006.
After that, he was shifted to Africa (January 2006 to December 2008), and to Thailand (January 2009 to December 2011).
The company on Wednesday announced that it was voluntarily recalling the Chevrolet Tavera BS3 (2.5L variant) and BS4 (2.0L variant) manufactured between 2005 and 2013 to address emissions and specification issues.
GMI said it had informed Government authorities of an emissions issue involving both the variants of the vehicle, and had stopped the production and sale of Tavera BS3 on June 4 and Tavera BS4 on July 2.
Having identified a solution to the problem and done the required validation, GMI is now awaiting regulatory approval.
After this, the company will resume production and sales of the Tavera, and move forward with its recall and customer notification plan for both the BS3 and BS4 models.
The company will notify customers how and when to bring in their vehicles for service. The affected vehicles will be repaired free of charge at GMI’s 280 dealers, it had said.