Tata Motors, the Indian conglomerate that bought Jaguar Land Rover last year, has said it may have to cut more jobs and close more plants after the British marques made a pre-tax loss of £281 million in the past ten months.

Ravi Kant, vice-chairman of Tata Motors, said that Jaguar Land Rover’s worldwide sales fell by 32 per cent from 246,000 vehicles to 167,000 for the ten months to March 30. He said: “Things are beginning to improve only marginally. There may be more job losses and more shutdowns of plants if required.”

While Land Rover sales fell considerably, Jaguar was held up by a positive consumer response to the new XF sedan, the company said. Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles are expected to be sold in India from next week.

Tata bought Jaguar Land Rover from Ford for £1.7 billion. The UK figures acounted for most of the 255 billion rupees (£315 million) full-year loss reported yesterday by Tata Motors — its first since 2001. The company made a net profit of 21.68 billion rupees for the year to March 30, 2008.

Jaguar Land Rover has laid off about 2,000 people this year from its workforce of 14,500. Des Thurlby, human resources director, said this week that the figure would have been higher if the company had not imposed a shorter working week, sabbaticals and pay freezes for some workers.

The company has been in talks with the Government to seek guarantees for loans of £340 million from the European Investment Bank for green research and technology. A spokesperson for the Department for Business said that negotiations were making progress over both short and long-term support for Jaguar Land Rover.

Tata’s sales have also been hit by the downturn, with the 2008-09 total, including exports, falling from 585,649 to 506,421. It remained India’s top maker of commercial vehicles with 265,373 units sold, down from 312,935, while the number of domestic vehicles fell to 207,512 from 218,055.

The company said that it had responded to the fall in sales by cutting costs “drastically” and aligning production more closely with demand.

Tata launched the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, at only 100,000 rupees this year. However, a dispute has disrupted production so that only 50,000 cars will be built in the next 12 months. The lack of capacity forced Tata to conduct a lottery for purchasers.

Ratan Tata, the chairman, has said that the Nano could sell a million cars a year in India and that it could even be of “considerable interest as a low-cost product” in America and Britain.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive