a car parked in a parking lot: Celebrating 37 years of the Maruti 800-India’s first modern car

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Celebrating 37 years of the Maruti 800-India’s first modern car


On 14th December, was the 37th anniversary of the roll-out of the first ever Maruti 800. Yes, in 1983, on 14 December, India’s former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the Maruti Suzuki plant and also handed over the keys of the first Maruti 800 to Harpal Singh.   Maruti “a car for the people of India” was the dream of Sanjay Gandhi and after his death in an air crash on June 23, 1980, his mother Indira Gandhi,  the then Prime Minister of India, decided to make her late son’s dream a reality. She put together a team of professionals to execute this and RC Bhargava, the current Chairman of Maruti joined the company after serving twenty-five years as an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. He was part of the core team that was headed