V B Shimpi the vice-president marketing, vehemently denied there was any plan to call a lockout. ``We have no problems at the plant that cannot be taken care of. The plant was merely going through a rough patch.''

Other officials also insist the problems are not insurmountable but secretly admit that the possibility of a turn-around is extremely bleak. They are hinging their hopes on the meeting with Peugeot, but are not sure if Peugeot will attend.

The 2,000 workers at the plant had seen the spectre of unemployment looming large for some weeks now -- whenthe canteen stopped serving lunch and their bosses began travelling in the bus that once ferried workers. ``It is difficult to believe that this is the same place which once made us objects of envy in neighbouring industrial areas. We were the best paid. We had a bus service and the canteen served excellent food,'' said a worker who has put in 23 years of service at the plant.

Today the sprawling plant (19,11,000 sq metre) wears a deserted look. Shop floors are silent and it is obvious the lawns have not been tended for months. And the workers, too, have not been paid wages for two months.

Things went sour in May when production stopped. ``We were reduced to merely painting cars which came made from the Kurla plant and now even that has stopped,'' said an engineer.

A senior Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) office said the plant owes them Rs 1.57 crore in dues. The electricity supply to the plant has been cut and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is planning to do thesame with water supply. There are other creditors too.

This reporter met a representative of Patheja Forgings, which supplies crank shafts to the company. He had come to find out about the Rs 90 lakh outstanding to his firm. Ever since Peugeot decided to part ways, PAL has been desperately looking for a buyer for the shares downloaded by the former. But investors are not coming forward because the operational costs of the plant are too high and there are intractable union problems. The two factors, observers say, were responsible for Peugeot's hurried exit too.

Inter-union troubles too have dogged the plant ever since the death of union leader Datta Samant. Though the management sacked two office-bearers of the rival Sakharam Sheet Employees Union and 30 other workers, the bad press was enough for Peugeot to make up its mind.

Later, the union-management friction worsened when the company began demanding exacting production targets and the former threatened strike. The then Rajya Sabha MP from the area,Ram Kapse, coordinated moves to get the Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, the union leaders and the management representatives to the negotiating table. Peugeot representatives did not turn up. That was perhaps the clearest indication of its intentions.